The Avadi Project
by VulcanElf
Summary: After Omega, in his quest for answers and a new life Vincent investigates an abandoned Shinra lab. What he finds there might be the planet's next Crisis. But maybe the secrets forgotten there also hold the key to his future. 2008 Genesis Award runner up.
1. Chapter 1

Come for the false advertising, stay for the quality of the writing.

Seriously, there are a couple of things we should get straight right here and now. One, this story will prominently feature an OC in a leading role.

I could offer all kinds of assurances that this story is not a romance and is actually about Vincent and his personal growth, but I don't think I should have to betray the plot arc simply to sell myself to already hostile potential non-readers. If the possibility that a canon character just might have some meaningful interaction with a person I pulled out of my own head inspires your back-button reflex too strongly, then by all means go away. It's your loss. But if you're willing to keep an open mind and see where we all end up together, then strap in and hold on and trust me to take you somewhere worth the effort.

Secondly, but only really interesting to me, is that the OC is a character born into the world of my writing even before FFVII came into being. She has her own story and history, and there are reasons why it was an interesting thought exercise to drop her into Gaia. Maybe one day you'll see her on a bookshelf, if I can ever crack into the world of published authors. For now, I hope you can give her a warm pre-welcome. And maybe keep in the back of your mind that to me, this is not an OC fic but a crossover.

Oh, and thirdly and irrelevantly: you can consider this consistent with "Kalm After the Storm" and indeed all of my currently-published stories.

**Edit: **In a fit of nostalgia, I was just browsing through this story last night. I noticed, to my frustration, that the site had eaten all of my section breaks, so my chapters are reading like headlong chaos. I'll be uploading corrected versions of every chapter affected by this chicanery, so that's why the story will say it has been recently updated. Not because I'm adding more to a finished story.

Without further ado:

* * *

_**Chapter One**_

**The** drive was an ugly one, through terrain that others might find beautiful, perhaps, though it was rank with far too much untamed growth. Reeve's information said there was an old Shinra facility stashed out here by the ruined Gongaga reactor; and there were reasons why Vincent Valentine was the first and only man he considered asking to investigate. Scenery was irrelevant.

With the detailed directions Reeve's agents had provided, it was not difficult to find the facility's location. _Seeing_ it was another challenge entirely. The jungle had all but swallowed it whole. Clearly, the place had not been visited in decades. Vincent threw his black boat of a car into park and sat there a moment, staring through the windshield with mako-enhanced vision until he had an idea where to begin looking for the entrance.

The jungle was out of control here. It made Vincent uneasy, the innumerable sounds and smells assailing his too-receptive senses. He was a man who needed order and control, needed them like he needed air, or else he felt his world on the verge of flying apart. He had been like that even before he died, though as a younger man he had lacked the self-discipline to create his own order. A different sort of chaos to live with, explaining many of his most terrible mistakes.

Pushing his cloak back, Vincent drew a deep breath and waded through the undergrowth along what he suspected had once been a well-maintained path. His gloved right hand never left the handle of his gun, holstered at his hip. It was difficult to sort through all the sensory information bombarding him, and he did not want to be caught unawares.

Aerial surveys reported that the lab was a small one – at least above ground. That didn't actually mean much. Only that if anything truly horrible had happened here, it had occurred deep in the bowels of the planet, closer to the Lifestream. Which was no reassurance. Vincent found the door and wrestled it open with his artificially augmented strength. It was quite dark inside. He freed Cerberus from its holster and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.

What he saw when his modified eyes had adjusted to the lack of light was a perfectly ordinary-looking lobby, rather like the waiting room of any office anywhere. The wall behind the receptionist's desk sported an enormous framed Shinra logo, and a dead potted plant sat in each corner, but otherwise the place was bare of adornment. There were two doors, one on either side of the desk, which was itself empty but for a pen and an old visitor's log.

Vincent stepped closer and scanned the most recent pages. Three names of significance instantly leapt out at him, offering an unpleasant hint as to the nature of the work carried out in this facility. He carefully tucked the clipboard and its pages into the bag he was carrying for just this purpose. There was nothing else to see here.

Long habit sent him first to the door on the left. It was, as he had expected, an office. File cabinets lined the far wall. Gauging the possible volume of their contents, he believed he would be able to fit all of it into the massive trunk of his car; but if he found much more in the way of hard copy here, it would be a struggle to bring it all back with him. He moved to the computer at the desk and hooked it up to the portable power supply he had brought with him.

As he waited for the hard drive to download to a memory stick, he poked through the desk drawers and a few of the file cabinets. Nothing of immediate interest but for a handheld voice recorder and a set of keys. He palmed the keys while pushing _play_ on the recorder. Batteries dead, of course. Impassively, he slid the device into the bag along with the log book and searched the desk drawers one more time for any additional tapes. No luck. He did, on his second pass, see a faded photograph which made his chest constrict in a way he had thought was long behind him.

The photograph made its way not into the bag, but a pocket of his fitted black leather jacket. He could not afford to think about what the picture meant, not yet. Not while he still had a job to complete.

The hard drive finished downloading. He reclaimed the memory stick, then drew out another. This one unleashed a virus prepared by the technicians at the WRO, designed to wipe the computer clean and fry its data beyond recovery. That done, he disconnected the portable power supply and stowed it away again. A final systematic pass-through of the office yielded nothing new. He would come back for the files on his way out.

Why was there a photograph at this facility of Vincent as an infant? As obvious as the answer was, he shrank from looking it in the eye.

The other door in the waiting room led to a short hallway. Two doors on the left, three on the right. The first, to his left, was a bathroom. There was also a broom closet and two exam rooms. The final portal opened upon a staircase descending into the darkness of the depths of the earth.

The materia embedded in the butt of his gun provided more than adequate light for him to see by, but even so the foot of the staircase was lost in the blackness below. He started down cautiously, Cerberus drawn and at the ready.

Below, he found another door closing off access to the rest of the facility, this one armored metal and quite sturdy. He tried the keys from the office. The third one went home with a click, and he pushed the door open.

To his surprise, there was still power down on the lower level. Probably an emergency backup system. Given the sensitive nature of the experiments being carried out down here, the scientists would not have wanted power cut at a crucial moment. His lip curled in disgust at the thought as it flourished and elaborated upon itself within his mind. He wondered which of his colleagues had been assigned security at this location, and if he had known what monstrous acts _he_ was safeguarding. He wondered if Doctor Grimoire Valentine had offered convincing assurances that their work was all for the good of mankind.

Too much idle speculation. Too much emotion. Even though his Turk days were behind him, he had the training and the experience to know this was counterproductive to his task. Pushing it all back, he advanced further into the underground laboratory which had, apparently, been his father's scientific domain. He wondered if Reeve had known that before sending him here.

It was the work of several hours, methodically investigating each room and its contents, downloading and then wiping the data on every computer, rounding up all surviving hard copies of the researchers' records. As difficult as it was for him to remain detached from what he was seeing down here, he knew it would be harder for anyone else. Anyone with a soul. In its heyday, Shinra had not exactly encouraged morals among its employees. Especially not among its scientists, as Vincent had personal cause to know. Perhaps Lucrecia had been doomed from the beginning, daring to have a conscience – even a murky one – in her line of work.

Vincent had found no living specimens here, escaped from containment in the long absence of supervision. He was mildly surprised. But of course, as soon as he made the observation to himself, he entered the final room and saw the glow of several active stasis tanks.

His gaze was instantly pulled to the one that was still occupied. The tank was horizontal, the figure inside lying prone and unmoving. Even from a distance, he could tell that it was female and that something about her was not quite normal.

He approached with caution. And caught his breath when he stood before the tank and saw clearly the woman lying there. She was… He did not consider himself poetic enough to describe what she was. Perfect. Stunning. Beautiful in a way that was painful to look at, like too much sun reflecting off of new snow.

Slender and fine-boned and shapely, lean with muscle but soft in all the right places. Features sharp and cold and precise. Eye sockets enormous in her too-pale face beneath elegantly thin eyebrows, the eyes themselves tilted at an exotic angle.

Looking down at her sleeping form, he found himself feeling a number of things. Disorienting things. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to touch _all_ of her. Intimately, forcefully, perhaps somewhat deviantly, in ways that had not occurred to him since before his death. Since Lucrecia. No. He was feeling the urge to do things to her he had _never_ done with Lucrecia. His long-repressed libido was screaming itself awake, demanding to be satisfied, demanding the feel of this strange woman lying asleep in an abandoned Shinra lab having suffered God only knew what torment at the hands of the scientists here.

But as much as he wanted her, he was not beyond recognizing that something about her was just _not right_. He couldn't put his finger on it, quite.

His heart was hammering beneath his breastbone, his breath coming too fast. This was ridiculous. He knew how to act like a professional. And he had seen beautiful women before. Plenty. He forced himself to relax, taking several deep breaths.

When he had himself under control, he considered his options. His cautious nature told him he should check through the computer files, see if he could find anything to tell him what had been done to this "sample." No matter how distracting her beauty might be, it was possible she could be dangerous given what Shinra had liked doing to its specimens. Unfortunately, he had already wiped all the computers. The data would have to be reviewed by Reeve's WRO technicians.

After a moment, he came to a conclusion. Perhaps a foolish one, but he would deal with that later if he had to. He went back upstairs and loaded everything he would be bringing back with him into the trunk of the car. It all fit, just. It was possible he might have to make a hasty escape, but he hoped not. He really hoped not. When it was all in, he went back down to the lab, to the one occupied room. His hands were shaking. He stood there, waiting, until they were steady again. Looking at her didn't help, but he told himself he was going to have to get used to it. To her. To the intoxicating strange perfection of her. He had not felt this boyishly uncertain in a very long time, and it was bringing many unpleasant memories to the surface of his mind.

Eventually, he felt calm enough to deactivate and open the tank. He had, fortunately, enough presence of mind to take a sample of the solution they'd had her in before it drained off. Carefully, he lifted her out. The feel of her in his arms was distracting, surreal. Since the only surface in the room was an examination table, and Vincent knew very well what it felt like to wake up on one of those, he set her down gently on the floor and knelt beside her.

When she showed no sign of waking, he rummaged through his supplies and pulled out a potion. He had to do _something_ logical, to combat the absurd fairy-tale inspired urge he was having to try waking "the fair maiden" with a kiss. He also fought an impulse to remove his glove just so he could feel her skin as he lifted her head and tipped the potion down her throat. The muscles in her white neck flexed as her body told her to swallow. He almost breathed a sigh of relief. A moment later, her eyelids fluttered open.

Green. Her eyes were green. Deep, vibrant, emerald green. Brighter than Sephiroth's, more intense than Aerith's. Piercing and perceptive and intelligent, almost frighteningly so, even from the moment they opened and took in their first view of the lab. And when they settled on Vincent, they filled first with startled sorrow, then with hurt anger, then weary resignation, passing quickly into a complex mix of all three dominated still by the anger.

Never had he been looked at quite like that before.

When she didn't say anything, he realized he would have to. "You don't have to be afraid. I won't hurt you." Only after he had spoken did he realize that despite the confusing combination of emotions stabbing into him from her astonishing eyes, none of those emotions was fear – the one he was accustomed to seeing, when people looked at him.

At the sound of his voice, she flinched and closed her eyes. But she said nothing.

"My name is Vincent Valentine," he tried again. "I'm going to get you out of here."

She opened her eyes at that, though she did not look at him. Quite deliberately, it seemed. She swallowed, as if testing. Then opened her mouth and said, carefully, "_No_."

He frowned. "No?"

"You should not have woken me," she explained grimly. Her voice was clear and soft. Low for a woman's, pleasantly so, and she spoke with an unfamiliar accent.

But he heard in her voice the same numb despair he had felt more than six years ago, when Cloud and the others had forced him from his long slumber in Nibelheim. He knew. He _knew_.

"You shouldn't say that," he rumbled quietly. So much wrong would have gone unchecked if he had stayed in his coffin. A few apocalypses-worth. And after everything that had happened, he realized there was life still to be lived. Even by him. Even by her, whatever her personal Hell.

Her eyes were drooping already, dragging her back toward drug- or mako-induced sleep. "It is not your concern," she replied, slurring her words. "Leave me in peace." Her eyelids fell and her body went limp; and just like that, she was asleep again.

The argument effectively over, Vincent gathered her up into his arms once more and carried her back out into the real world.

* * *

She ended up sleeping most of the way to Junon, drifting in and out of consciousness at odd intervals. He could only assume she was working a high dosage of tranquilizer out of her system. The first time she woke up to find herself strapped into the passenger seat of his car, the anger she exuded was palpable. She said nothing, though, simply turned her face to the window and watched the landscape roll by until her eyelids fell again.

When the guards admitted his car into the WRO Headquarters garage, she was asleep again. He was secretly glad of the excuse to hold her once more, pressed to his chest. That _something_ about her, that unidentifiable element of _not right-ness_, had in no way detracted from her allure during their long drive.

He did his best not to dwell on that as he carried her into the building. He managed to make it nearly to the medical center before being flanked by a curious doctor and an irritating cat robot.

"Vincent, welcome back!" Cait Sith called out brightly. "What have you got there?"

"A patient," Vincent said to the doctor, flatly, instead of addressing the silly robot. "I think Reeve should get down here."

Cait forced himself into Vincent's line of sight, nearly catching himself up in the tall man's tattered red cloak. "Reeve is in a meeting right now. C'mon, Vincent. You can talk to me."

Vincent had often wondered with great annoyance why Reeve had chosen to give the animatron that particular accent, but he could do no more than speculate. He silently allowed the WRO doctor to direct him toward a bed in the medical bay, where he placed his sleeping charge with no small amount of reluctance. Cait was still dancing at his heels.

"I found her in a stasis tank at the abandoned facility," Vincent explained, finally acknowledging both parties as he spoke. He gave the doctor the vial he had been carrying all the way from the lab. "This is the solution they were keeping her in."

The man took it and moved immediately to begin examining his unexpected patient. "Thank you, Mr. Valentine. Although, anything else you can tell us would be helpful…"

Vincent gave a brisk nod. "I have the entirety of the facility's computer data, as well as several hundred hard files. Hopefully, something there will be of use."

"You can take that straight to the computer lab," Cait instructed, bouncing and waving his arms frantically as he spoke. "I'll let The Boss know you're back."

Grunting his assent, Vincent gave the woman one last glance before turning to complete his assignment. What had she lost, what had she suffered, in order for the scientists at Shinra to satisfy their curiosity as to how far they could push the human body?


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two**_

**As** a personal favor to Vincent, Shelke Rui put aside her work and agreed to review the data herself. Even for her, it ended up being a monumental task. He had brought back a _lot _of information. So much that she sent for Vincent and Reeve partway through, just to let them know she was still working.

Her preliminary findings were somewhat troubling.

"Vincent Valentine," she observed tonelessly as he came through the door into the computer research lab. And straight on to business, "When you worked for Shinra, did you ever hear of the Avadi Project?"

It sounded familiar… maybe, a little. But not enough. "No."

"Nor did I," Reeve added with his omnipresent concerned scowl.

She sighed heavily. "I was hoping you would be able to shed some light on the subject. I am finding these records incredibly frustrating to make sense of. It is almost as though they were not _meant _to make sense."

"Just tell us what you've learned so far," Reeve encouraged, sounding more condescending than he had probably meant to.

She gave Reeve a _look_, enough to clearly state that she had been intending to do just as he so patronizingly proposed.

Vincent hid a smirk behind the high collar of his red cloak.

"The Avadi Project," Shelke continued, "seems to have been a research endeavor on par with the Jenova Project, with which you are familiar." Vincent grunted; she went on without pause. "Considerable resources were diverted to that facility during the life of the project. It would appear that at least one of the primary goals of the experiment had to do with extending human longevity. But where the focus sample was being stored, or what it was, I have not yet discovered."

"Another Jenova…" Reeve murmured uneasily, glancing at Vincent.

"Not exactly," Shelke corrected. "Although I cannot yet say for certain what 'Avadi' refers to, it is clear enough from what I have seen so far that it is not an organism of the same type as Jenova."

Reeve was decidedly troubled. "Even so…"

The deceptively frail-looking woman waved a hand to forestall his pessimism. "I agree, there _is_ cause for some concern. A little caution would be appropriate, as far as the sample Vincent brought back from the lab, until we can be sure she has not been modified to pose a threat." The glance she flitted in Vincent's direction was at least somewhat apologetic as she added, "After all, we do not yet know what alterations have been made to her physiology."

A true enough statement of obvious facts, one Vincent had even made himself, and yet, he was reluctant to think of the unknown woman as an enemy. He did not want to let the others do so, either. But without more information, all they could do was wait and see.

"Is that all?" Reeve prompted after they had considered her words for a moment.

"Not quite." Surprisingly, she turned from her work console to look Vincent fully in the eye. "You should be aware, the project leader was–"

"I know." He hadn't meant to sound so terse, but he did not apologize for it.

She did not even bat an eyelash. "Doctor Grimoire Valentine," she finished, for Reeve's benefit.

The Commissioner remained blessedly silent, processing that.

Time to change the subject, Vincent decided. "What can you tell us about our mystery guest?"

Shelke watched him for a moment, disconcertingly perceptive, before answering. "Nothing at all. Only that she was kept in constant stasis. None of the records seem to indicate an active sample."

"The doctors' findings confirm that," Reeve put in. He looked first at Shelke, then at Vincent. "Analysis of the solution you brought back revealed a high concentration of refined liquefied sleep materia suspended in a modified tranquilizer."

The thought was somehow horrifying. Asleep with no possibility of escape, while her keepers did as they pleased…

"They said they haven't found anything physically wrong with her," Reeve was adding. "In theory, she should wake up once the solution has worked out of–"

"Commissioner!" an agitated voice shrilled over the comm. system. "You'd better get to the med lab right away."

Shelke calmly turned back to her terminal screen, anticipating being left alone to work again. Vincent and Reeve exchanged a look, then set off together through the long hallways.

Vincent was having the first unpleasant inkling of what the situation was, and it did not make him at all happy.

Fortunately, he was used to that.

* * *

There was, it turned out, no pressing emergency once they reached the medical center. Just a very excited – and disturbed – Dr. Reynolds. Vincent gave the man little more than a glance before focusing his attention on the room's silent, unmoving inhabitant.

They had run an I.V. line and she was hooked up to several beeping monitors. It all looked wrong; she looked far too vulnerable. He noticed, wondering how he had missed it before, that the pale skin of both her forearms was almost completely covered with a tracery of thin white scars. On closer inspection, it appeared to be writing of some kind, swirling ugly runes in an ancient alphabet he did not recognize.

Studying her now, when he had nothing else to focus on, he also realized that she was younger than he had originally estimated. Before, he had taken her for a mature adult woman. Now, looking lost and small and sad – and dreadfully out of place – in the clinical white bed, she appeared little more than a child. A beautiful, well-sculpted child, but terribly young after all. Which was disturbingly deceptive, given how long she had to have been left alone and forgotten in that lab.

In light of the intuition that had begun to trouble him on the way here, he was not at all surprised by the doctor's blurted words:

"She's not human, sir."

Vincent bit back a growled retort that neither was he.

To his credit, Reeve seemed to take it in stride, simply asking in his calmest voice for the doctor to elaborate.

"Her physiology, sir," Dr. Reynolds replied. "It's all wrong. Just subtle ways, really. You wouldn't know it to look at her…" He trailed off, seeming to acknowledge the same sense of _not-rightness_ Vincent had noticed. "We first thought something was off when we got her preliminary bloodwork back."

Vincent said nothing, knowing Reeve would ask all the necessary questions.

"And why is that?" Reeve probed, on cue.

"Her blood type," Reynolds clarified. "It doesn't match any known type on record. Not even the rarest."

Vincent finally turned to regard the two men. Reynolds' eyes were wide as he pointed to some incomprehensible display on his work terminal. Molecules or cells or something like. Vincent gave it a quick perusal and found that not even a second look made it any more enlightening.

"Her body temperature, too," the white-coated man went on excitedly. "At first we thought she was running a fever, but she has no other symptoms of illness except for a constant temperature of 102.3. Her heart rate and blood pressure are freakishly low. Her O2 sats are way high. Her organs all seem to be operating well beyond human peak efficiency. And I should add, her brain activity, at rest, blows every concept of normal our neurologist is familiar with. But as far as we can tell, in every way we know how to measure, she seems to be in perfect health. Whatever that means."

"If she's not human," Vincent cut in flatly, before Reeve could say anything, "then what is she?"

The doctor literally threw up his hands. "Your guess is as good as mine, Mr. Valentine. All I can tell you is that whatever she is, we've never seen anything like this before. Not even you, sir. She is what she is; no one _made_ her this way."

No one spoke for a long moment. Reeve was the one to finally break the silence with an impressively level, "Thank you, Dr. Reynolds. Please let me know when you have more information. In the meantime, see that she remains secured in this lab. I will have a guard detail posted here immediately."

Vincent could feel his lips thinning against one another almost before he realized that he was on the verge of saying something he might regret. Without a word, he swept the fabric of his cloak aside and left the med lab.

He heard the door slide open and then closed again behind him.

"Vincent!"

He stopped walking but did not turn around. Reeve's steps quickly caught up to him.

"Is there some problem?" the Commissioner asked after a moment.

Vincent still did not turn to face him. He was having a hard enough time trying to figure out how he felt about all of this. He was certainly not about to talk about it here, with Reeve, and uncover his thoughts before they were fully formed – before he had decided if they were to be shared at all.

"Why should there be a problem?"

A long silence stretched between them. Reeve clearly had his doubts, and was trying to decide whether to press the issue. It was never a good idea to do that, with Vincent. He seemed to come to that conclusion finally, for he simply said, "Where are you going?" There was only a slight challenge in his voice.

"To help Shelke with her research," Vincent replied succinctly. It was the absolute truth, even if he was not prepared to discuss motive. He could not think of a single thing he could do at the moment that would be of more use.

Reeve sighed. "Thank you."

What he was thanking him for, exactly, Vincent did not know and did not especially care. And he was not going to ask. Instead of wasting further time evading a pointless conversation, he continued on his way back to the room where Shelke had her hands and her brain full with too much information that made too little sense.

* * *

In the old glory days of Shinra, the Turks were notorious for several things. Vincent had been aware of all of them but had sought the job anyway. Possibly because he had been more than slightly out of his right mind at the time – one of the things the Turks were known for. Regular psychiatric evaluations had been compulsory for all members of the organization, but not really as a means of staying on top of their mental health. More, in all likelihood, as a form of damage control. Best to decommission the ones who were about to pop before they actually went off. And for the ones who simply lived on the line, the assessments were the company's way of figuring out how to use each Turk's own special brand of crazy to best effect.

With Vincent's initial psych eval, it had been determined that he worked more effectively on his own. Maybe it was some kind of only-child thing. He had never been good at giving orders, or at taking ones he couldn't see the point of. And in those days, he'd had something of a reputation for an itchy trigger finger where it came to co-worker disagreements.

In reality, it had only taken a legendarily short fuse, one bad day, and shooting off one jackass cadet's middle finger to acquire a "reputation." Since Shinra was all about efficiency, and about _not_ having to deal with the paperwork that would have been involved with more in-office shootings, he had been left un-partnered throughout the entirety of his career. He had preferred it that way.

While he was fond of Cloud and the others, it had definitely been a trial having to work with them. Especially with all the constant bickering and disagreements and the lack of focus that can never be avoided with so many dissenting opinions and perceived conflicting priorities involved.

Working with Shelke, he reflected as he scoured at least his five-hundredth file hunched over an uncomfortably low desk, had to be the next best thing to working alone. In an office setting, anyway. He liked her fine, but he wouldn't want to deal with her out in the field. They spoke only when necessary as they traded files, sharing aloud only what information the other would find immediately relevant. All other findings went into the reports the two of them were compiling.

But then he hit on something.

"Shelke. I've found it. Avadi. I know what it is."

She turned in her seat to look at him, waiting silently for him to elaborate.

It was ridiculous, the intensity of the relief flooding him as he scanned the archive document before him. "Avadi is the name the Cetra gave to a race so ancient they were already extinct by the time of the Ancients."

The girl's expression betrayed real interest. "Does it say what 'Avadi' means?"

He shook his head, reading again to be certain he was correct. "No. But apparently, the Avadi were revered by the Cetra for their wisdom and deep connection to the planet."

Shelke thought about it for only a moment before surmising, "In other words, the Avadi were a benevolent race." She turned back to regard whatever she had been reading on her work terminal.

He was _so_ relieved. Ridiculously. "So it would seem."

"Reeve will be pleased to hear it," Shelke said, "because according to what I'm looking at here, 'the last living Avadi, hereafter referred to as sample A17V' meets your woman's physical specifications."

* * *

Sometimes Vincent really hated people. He certainly hated having to convince people of anything. One of the reasons, when he was younger and stupider, he had relied so often on the barrel of his gun in negotiations.

At the moment he was hating Reeve, who for some head-up-his-ass reason was refusing to view their findings as good news.

The omnipresent scowl of concern was of course working its scrunched-up magic between the Commissioner's eyebrows, as though it alone could convey the benevolence of Reeve's misgivings. _It's not that I don't have every confidence in you,_ the scowl said with warm fatherly apprehension, _it's just that I'd rather not see anyone get hurt_.

"But we don't know anything _about_ these Avadi," Reeve objected. "Where did they come from, why did they die off; and can we really trust their inherent goodness based solely on the recommendation of a people who never met them? And even if we could, that doesn't necessarily mean anything about the one we have sleeping in the med lab. Was she an outcast of some kind? Why is she the only one left? Did she kill off her own people? We don't even know what was done to her in that testing facility. The scans show she has suffered massive trauma over virtually every part of her body. What if she was modified to be a weapon of some kind?" He shook his head, ignoring the fury building in Vincent's ominous red eyes. "No, I'm sorry, Vincent. Until we know more, I still have to consider her a possible threat."

Vincent flexed and unflexed his fingers within the casing of his metal claw, willing himself not to lose his temper, willing his voice to remain low and calm. Trying to find words that were not meant simply to wound with their venom. _Thank God you weren't the one to find the note and the key that day, you heartless bastard,_ he thought, but did not say. It seemed very likely Reeve might have opted to leave the modified Turk safely confined in his basement Hell, just to be on the safe side, if the choice had been his to make.

Vincent drew a deep breath.

"At least move her someplace more private, where she's not on display," he managed evenly. "I think you would agree she has been through enough of that."

Reeve considered the request for a moment before replying with a brisk nod. "Agreed. We may not be able to give her her freedom, but at least we can give her a little dignity. I will, however, have to post a guard detail outside her door."

Vincent was in no mood to say _thank you_, and he didn't think Reeve deserved it at the moment. He simply grunted and headed toward the med lab to help carry out his own suggestion. Reeve, he noted, sighed and stayed behind to talk more with Shelke. Possibly to commiserate with her on the subject of the former Turk's obstinacy and frustrating ways.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three**_

"**Good **news, Mr. Valentine," the young nurse told him cheerfully as soon as the door slid open. He had not even stepped into the room yet when she went on, "Your woman was awake for a while this afternoon. I think she's coming out of it."

Why was everyone referring to her as 'his woman'? He wasn't sure if he was annoyed enough by it to say anything, which of course made him opt for continued silence. But still: "For how long?" he asked instead of rebuking the nurse. He walked across the stark white tile to the bedside to look down upon a face not much less white.

"A good quarter hour," the blonde girl replied, beaming. "And then another ten minutes not quite an hour later. That was around four."

The part of him he usually ignored was irritated that no one had come to get him, but the dominant rational part of his brain told him to be glad they knew better than to interrupt while he was trying to do something important.

"The Commissioner has given permission for her to be transferred to a private room," he informed the girl.

Pretty forehead wrinkling for just a moment, the nurse looked like perhaps she wanted to question him but feared to. He chose not to make his countenance any less threatening. "Sure thing, Mr. Valentine. Let me just… see which room…"

Without another word, she slipped out of the lab, leaving Vincent alone with the sleeping patient. He did not doubt that the nurse was even now at a communications console in the hallway, calling Reeve to make sure the order was on the level.

He sighed and looked down at the pale sleeping woman. It was painful to imagine what she must have thought, waking up in a setting so like the one in which she had been held and tortured. _Massive trauma over virtually every part of her body._ Surrounded by strangers and frightening machines, a needle pumping what could be anything into her arm. She was the last of a race so old the Ancients had considered them mythical; what if she had been asleep so long none of this technology made any sense to her? Who could conceive of _what_ it all might look like, to her?

When the perky blonde nurse came back in, Vincent realized he had been hoping the woman would wake up for him, just him, while they were alone. He scoffed at himself for the hope, but could not deny that it had been real.

"All set, Mr. Valentine," the girl told him brightly. Her smile, he decided, was offensively sunny. "We'll be taking her to 1F 46." She came up to the bedside and started shutting off and disconnecting all the monitoring equipment, then unhooked the I.V. bag, laying it carefully across the woman's abdomen. Finally she released the brakes on all four wheels. "You going to help me drive?"

He got into position behind the bed and pushed. It moved awkwardly; he saw no reason to bother. Instead he picked her up, careful of the I.V. bag, and started for the door. Her black hair brushed his cheek as he adjusted his hold. It was very soft.

The nurse hurried to follow in his wake. "Well you don't waste time, do you, Mr. Valentine?" she bubbled.

Together they made it the short distance down the hall to the room that would be the woman's unofficial prison until Reeve decided otherwise. Two uniformed guards were already standing outside the door.

Although it was meant to be a patient recovery room, it was actually not all that dissimilar to some prison cells Vincent had seen in his day. Small, closed, cramped, the furnishings on the institutional side of Spartan, with a bed that no human could possibly be comfortable sleeping in. Just with a soothing shade of paint on the walls, a chair that bothered to have cushions on the seat and narrow back, and a toilet luxuriously closed off from the rest of the room by a thin door.

The sheets had already been turned down in anticipation of their arrival. Vincent did not wait for instructions. He simply lay the woman down in her new bed and stepped out of the way. The nurse leaned in to bring up the sheets and to re-hang the bag that was pumping nourishment into the Avadi woman's body. Throughout the process, there had been no change in the appearance of her too-white features. The cheery blonde girl fussed about, checking the woman's vitals, looking a little bit like she was trying to find excuses to put off leaving her patient unsupervised.

"I think she'll be all right from here, Nurse," he said tersely. "Thank you."

The girl's smile was maybe a little forced. "Okay, then." She pointed to a large blue button on the wall by the door. "Call button. If she needs anything. The doctor will be by to check on her before lights out." She hesitated. "Are… you going to stay here?"

He nodded. "For a while." No need to say he meant to stay until he had seen her awake.

The nurse smiled and returned the nod, but did not add anything further.

Vincent sighed and tried to make himself comfortable in the purgatorial chair as he settled in for a long wait.

* * *

There had been a time in Vincent's life when he had lied to himself just as much as any normal, sane man, well before choosing a vocation that all but required it. He had been a very dense teenager, worse than most. But he had lately, thanks to Hojo, spent far too much time alone with himself and his own thoughts to be capable of self-deception any longer.

Sometimes he valued this new honesty, while at others he found himself wishing he could fool himself even a little bit. Happiness would be so much easier to come by and hold onto, he was certain, if he could make himself just buy into the lie that one day everything would be all right.

Despite his awareness of this inner candor, however, he was having a hard time believing what his brain was trying to tell him about his reaction to this woman. That his… affinity? empathy? connection? with her had any deeper significance than physical desire. His brain was trying to tell him that he felt a deep soul bond with her born of common suffering. It was trying to tell him that he was in love with her, or would be as soon as he knew her.

No matter how much he wanted to believe that was the truth, it felt too much like sentimental bullshit, or like just the kind of lie a man's sex drive would feed his brain in an attempt to ennoble the pursuit.

It had been a long time since his body, or his brain, had behaved like a normal man's, and he was finding it sort of difficult to remember what that had been like. He could recall specific events, but not so much the feelings that had led to them. And love, he did not remember being quite like this. It made much more sense to him to think of this as lust. She was certainly desirable.

It wasn't just him, either. He saw the way the male doctors and other WRO personnel looked at her. Maybe that was what had Reeve so concerned. Maybe he feared she could be emitting some kind of supernatural siren call that would soon have the entire compound and then the planet in helpless disarray. Not that anyone at HQ had yet displayed a reduced capacity to do his job, since her arrival.

Vincent found himself smirking at the thought, but the amused twist to his lips soon faded as he continued to look at her without coming to any better understanding of his feelings where she was concerned.

He knew that part of it was a knee-jerk reaction to Reeve's reflexive xenophobia. It offended him somewhere deep inside to see such unthinking paranoid mistrust directed at a person who in many ways was another version of himself. Who had suffered so many of the same things, the same violations and indignities, only to be hated and feared after the trauma by those who should be offering the hand of charity to a tormented soul. It was… too familiar. Vincent had been encountering it himself all too often, in the last six years.

Only his friends, the former members of AVALANCHE, had been different. Because they had fought beside him and believed he was a good man, true or not, they had always given him the benefit of the doubt where others were inclined to fear him. He was commonly viewed as a freak, which was true, and dangerous, which was also true, and not worthy of trust or basic human kindness. Which, as much as he tried not to let it, hurt sometimes. He did not want to see someone else go through it, someone possibly more innocent than he had been in the events of _his_ personal tragedy.

Yes, there was an element of protectiveness to the whole complicated mess. He had always had kind of a hero complex where he perceived a woman in danger, which obviously had led him where he was today. Those Shinra head experts had traced it all back to mother issues. He remembered his reaction when he had read his own file after they completed the evaluation. Incident One under the heading of Acquiring a Reputation for Office Violence.

It was true, though. And he _did_ want to protect this woman. Among the other things he wanted to do to her.

That thought staining his pale cheeks an uncharacteristic shade of red, he had to duck his face down into the collar of his cloak when the door opened suddenly and Reeve came in.

Friend or not, Vincent was not very happy with the man at the moment.

The bearded bureaucrat stopped beside Vincent's chair and stood looking down at the serene face of the sleeping woman. "I've called in an expert on Ancient Lore," he said quietly. With maybe the merest shade of remorse in his tone. "He should be here by morning. How is she?"

Vincent gestured noncommittally and said nothing. Reeve could see just as well as he that her condition had not changed, as though he hadn't talked to the doctors first.

Reeve was silent for a moment. "Vincent…" He paused, still being careful. "I don't know what's going on in your head – no one does – but you seem to think I'm your enemy on this. I hope you understand I'm just trying to do what is best for the most people. As Commissioner of the WRO, I have a responsibility to protect lives. I've seen too much, these last few years…" He shook his head. "I can't be the one responsible for unleashing the next Calamity on the planet."

He really did understand. He did. He just wasn't happy with any of this, and he couldn't pretend to be.

"Vincent?" Reeve prompted when he received no reply.

Sinking his face further into the high red collar, Vincent considered a moment before framing a response. He knew that Reeve was absolutely right on every rational level, and normally Vincent would be the one standing against the wall with his hand on the safety of his gun, watching for the suspect to twitch wrong. Physical desire alone had never compromised his professional judgment in the past. Something else had to be going on here. He had just never been any good at making sense of emotions, his or anyone else's.

But he wasn't going to try to come to grips with that in Reeve's presence.

"You're just doing your job," he managed to say in a tone that gave away nothing. But could not resist adding, "I'm glad this wasn't your job that day in Nibelheim."

Reeve actually flinched at that. "This isn't you we're talking about, Vincent."

It was strange. Now that Vincent _knew_ he was being irrational, he was feeling even less inclined to do something about it. "It may as well be."

Another silence stretched between them, which was odd. Ordinarily, Reeve was so much more confident than this. He was being terribly cautious with Vincent today. Understandable, actually. Looking at the situation with an outsider's eye, Vincent had to admit that an unreasonable version of himself had to be immeasurably more alarming than the usual incarnation – and that, unfortunately, was saying something.

Perhaps Reeve had been on the verge of making a sage reply, but Vincent would never know because at that moment the woman stirred and the green eyes blinked open slowly.

She stared straight up at the ceiling for a moment, processing that she was once again in a new place, before turning her head to regard the two men in the room. Her gaze fell first upon Vincent, as he was closest. Once again, her expression went through that fascinating sequence of surprise and grief, hurt anger, then tired hopelessness still underscored by a smoldering rage.

He was at a loss to understand how the sight of him could inspire that kind of reaction, and was more disturbed by it than ever.

She blinked and quickly shifted her attention to Reeve, as if it pained her to look at Vincent too long. The gaze she fixed on the Commissioner was perfectly bland and uninterested, the contrast startling. Eventually, she sighed and turned her head aside. She could not possibly have managed to appear more remote, thoroughly bored of her surroundings and the situation.

Reeve cleared his throat. "It's good to see you finally awake." He was using his Diplomat Voice, all warm and confident and reassuring.

She made no response. It was almost as though he had not spoken.

He forged ahead anyway. "You're at the WRO Headquarters. My name is Reeve Tuesti; I'm in charge here."

Still nothing.

With her head turned aside, the elegant line of her throat was flexed in a way that almost demanded to be touched. An urge was nagging at the back of Vincent's mind, a need to tear his teeth into that soft flesh and lap at the warm blood as it pumped from her body. Galian. The beast's appetites were so predictable they had become quite easy to ignore.

"I don't know how much you remember," Reeve was saying. "Vincent–" he gestured at the man beside him, for her benefit, "–found you at an abandoned Shinra testing facility and brought you here to safety. You've been asleep in our medical center for almost three days."

Vincent wondered how much more material Reeve would be able to come up with in the absence of any encouragement from his audience.

She sighed again. If Vincent had not already heard her speak, he might have questioned whether or not she understood anything that was being said to her. She did not look at them, either of them, and still she said nothing. Her profile was amazing, so cold and sharp and austere. Definitely not human, though. He could see now that the something-not-right about her, while still difficult to name, had something to do with that. Her beauty was inhuman, conforming to a different aesthetic than what he was familiar with. Exotic was not quite the right word.

"Apparently," this was Reeve simply trying to get a reaction of some kind, Vincent felt certain, "you were a test subject at that Shinra lab. We're doing our best to review the data Vincent brought back, but we're not yet sure what happened there. Whatever we discover, we intend to help you in any way we can."

If the news was a surprise to her, she gave no indication.

Reeve frowned. This was not helping to allay his concerns.

Vincent decided to give it a try – to get her to say something, anything, that might put Reeve's mind at rest. "You're taking all of this pretty well." At the first sound of him speaking, she winced noticeably.

She blinked rapidly, eyes toward the ceiling, as though to stave off tears. But her eyes were quite dry. "It does not matter." Her voice was so low he almost didn't catch her words. "Nothing matters."

Her tone was flat with despair. Vincent recognized it right away; he remembered the feeling well from his own awakening. That sense of connection, of kindred suffering, was so strong in him it literally hurt.

But Reeve didn't seem to have heard the desolation. What he heard was an alarming disconnect from normal human emotion, more cause to fear and mistrust this unknown woman. "Doesn't matter?" He sounded rattled for the first time. He was letting the fact that she was not "human" play too strongly into his perception of the situation.

She shook her head minutely, black hair shifting upon the pillow. "You should not have brought me here." Her accent wrapped charmingly around every whispered word. "You should not have woken me."

That offering, also, did nothing to reassure Reeve. "Are you saying you are a threat to us?"

The woman did not speak for a long time, so long Vincent had decided she was going to pass on the question. But then she turned her head, finally, to look Reeve in the eyes. Searching him for something. The impression she had given, asleep, of being so young was completely absent now. Now she looked mature and shrewd and completely in control. "If I say I am a threat, will you send me back to sleep?" There was, achingly, a faint hope in her voice. Vincent willed Reeve to have heard it.

The Commissioner studied her right back, unanswering. At least he seemed to have engaged his brain, questioning why she would make that response and what she could possibly mean by it.

Vincent decided to take the initiative. "No." Let Reeve berate him for it later, if he wanted to.

What little energy had been in the tired woman seemed to leak out of her all at once at that one firmly spoken word. She flicked her eyes in Vincent's direction but did not linger over him. "When may I leave, then?"

"Ah." Reeve cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, we would like to keep you here a while longer, until we can figure out how to help you. Perhaps if you could tell us your name and where you're from, we could contact some friends or family to come for you…?" Not a very good lie, not at all convincing.

For the first time, something like a smile appeared briefly on the woman's lips. It was a bitter, mirthless expression. "I see. I am a prisoner."

Reeve was quick to respond. "Please understand, we just–"

She cut him off in her soft, low voice. "I understand."

The Commissioner watched her for a moment. Vincent could see that the conversation had made him more uncomfortable than ever, and that he feared to make things worse with more talking. "You are still tired," he said at last. "I will leave you to your rest." Casting an uneasy glance in Vincent's direction, he turned and made an almost undignified retreat from the tiny recovery room.

The former Turk did not follow him. He continued to watch the strange, damaged woman. She was painful to look at, oddly dynamic despite the hopeless inertia visible in every line of her well-formed body. What was it she saw when she looked at him that caused her such agony? Whatever the answer, it did not bode well for his chances with her. A deeply depressing thought.

Obviously she knew he was still there, but she did not acknowledge his presence.

"We still don't know your name," he tried quietly. Hopefully it would force _some_ kind of response, even if she continued to prove strangely evasive on the subject.

She turned her gaze so that her luminous green eyes were fixed on the wall beside Vincent's head. "Your friend is right. I am tired."

Obstinately he refused to acknowledge the hint. "You were being kept in a mixture of tranquilizer and sleep materia. The doctors say the tiredness will wear off soon."

_That_ got a response: another twisting of her lips in an expression of sour amusement at his intransigence. But she did not look at him. It seemed she could not look at him.

He needed her to.

The urge to reach out with his gloved hand and touch her soft white skin was so strong he was shaking. He folded his arms hard across his chest. "I'm not letting you give up."

That, too, elicited a reaction he had not expected. Frowning, she shifted her gaze onto him once more and once more seemed deeply wounded by whatever it was she saw. But she forced herself to look, blinking as if against an insistent sting. "It is not your concern. You do not know…" She held his gaze for as long as she could, but eventually had to look away again, presenting him with that heartbreaking profile. "If you cannot return me to my sleep, you can do nothing for me."

A window. He was being shown a window of some kind here, only he did not know how to open it. Frustration gnawed at him. Frustration and pity. He knew what she was saying, that she wished for oblivion in order to escape her pain. He also knew, having tried it himself, that it was not as effective a means of escape as she would need it to be.

"I may not know exactly what you've suffered," he murmured, reaching for the right words, "but I have been through something similar myself."

"That I find difficult to believe," she said quietly, interrupting his flow. He got a sense suddenly, listening to the way she put her thoughts together, that she did not have as much of a handle on the language as he had originally thought.

He sighed, not sure how much to say. How much she would believe, on less than no acquaintance. "I was used by Shinra, too, as a lab experiment," he tried to explain. "The doctor… did things to me that…" He didn't know where to begin explaining what his tortured body had endured. "I lost everything, I lost thirty years of my life; and when I woke up, the world had passed me by. And I was…" He hesitated. _Different. Modified beyond all recognition. A monster. The shell of a man who hadn't been worth much to begin with. A pathetic failure. Angry at the world and angrier at myself. Prepared to sleep away my sins until time itself came to an end._

"He took away not just what I had, but what I _was_." How to say more, he did not know. He wished he was doing better at this. "Maybe you've been through worse, but I do know what suffering is. And I will not let you give in to it."

Unhappiness pinched her features although she did not look at him. "That is terrible." Was that sympathy in her voice, or merely a sad acknowledgment of life's general unfairness? "But it is not that I mourn what you say happened to me in that lab. I have no memory of being there. I was asleep. Asleep without dreams." That last was spoken on a wistful note of longing. And he could see that the drowsiness was taking hold of her again. Their time was almost up.

It took a moment for the meaning of her words to fully register. "You put _yourself_ to sleep?" The tightening of her lips seemed to be a confirmation. "Why?"

She blinked tiredly, focusing this time on his shoulder. At least it was a part of him. "Because," her voice was losing strength, "I have lost everything, and death would be no comfort."

That was… He really didn't know how to reply to that, no matter how much he wanted to. What, was he supposed to tell her that everything would be fine? It wasn't as bad as she thought it was? The trouble was, he knew exactly what she meant because he had felt the same way; and as hard as he had been trying to find the answers, all he had managed so far was blind hope and the strength to carry on despite the fact that he had not yet rediscovered his life's meaning. He could not tell her to _hang in there_. That would be less than helpful in response to so much despair.

In the end, all he managed was, "I'm sorry." Deeply, deeply heartfelt.

She seemed to lose all interest in the conversation then, and not simply because she was fast drifting toward unconsciousness once more. "You have no cause to be sorry," she said flatly. "It… was not your doing."

"Of course not," he agreed, a little desperate to say more before the conversation ended. "But I wish…" He stopped, shook his head. This was too hard. It wasn't like he could tell her that he loved her and it hurt him to see her suffering.

Her eyes had fluttered closed, her breath was slowing peacefully. Her voice came out as a barely audible whisper of sound: "I know."

And just like that, she was gone again.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four**_

**Apparently**, Reeve had shuffled his priorities for the next few days, because when Vincent returned to Shelke's lab he found the Commissioner waiting for him to discuss their unwilling guest. Vincent was not certain when the last time was he had attended to business that did _not_ pertain to this newest situation. That meant Reeve was starting to consider this a full-on crisis.

Reeve remained seated when Vincent came in, watching as the former Turk sat at the desk where he had been working for the last two days. Those deep furrows between his eyebrows had not left or eased from the moment this had begun.

"What did you make of that?" he asked finally.

Shelke did not look up from her terminal or give the least indication she cared what was being discussed.

Vincent found himself scowling. Something personal had passed between the two of them in that small room after Reeve's departure, and even though he knew he had to report some of it he was not prepared to discuss it all. And he knew also that Reeve was floundering here, at a loss to understand anything the woman had said and concerned about what it might mean.

"The Shinra did not put her to sleep," he decided to say. "She did that to herself."

The impressive lines in Reeve's brow deepened. "What? Why?" He did not question how Vincent knew, or how he could be certain. But he seemed as incredulous as it was possible for a man to be.

"Despair."

He watched Reeve consider that for a moment, the intelligent brown eyes downcast as he sorted through the implications.

"That woman isn't a threat," Vincent added softly. "She is a danger only to herself." Although actually, if he understood her correctly – and he was certain he did – she would not take her own life. She was simply desperate for oblivion.

Reeve sighed, shaking his head. "I want to believe that. This is all too much for me. Ancient magical races and strange altered physiologies and evil experiments and planetary crises… It has to end some time. Surely it has to end. Can't we just be normal people living boring lives, worrying about mortgages and work and whether or not the girl in accounting would consider going out for a drink?"

A strange dream, but Vincent understood. A little normalcy would be nice, after everything the planet had already been through. But for some of them, it would never be possible. He looked down at the desk, where his claw was resting beside the stack of file folders.

Most people didn't know it, but he had a perfectly ordinary, functioning hand and arm under the gleaming metal. He could take the gauntlet off, if he wanted to. He could try to look more normal. He chose not to.

He wore it as a reminder. That he was _not_ normal, and could never for a moment pretend that he was, for the safety of everyone around him. There were battles being fought inside his mind every moment of his life now, waking and sleeping, that he could not afford to lose. He wore it to remind himself that he was a killer, a dangerous man, with dark things in his past he could not ignore for fear of repeating the kind of mistakes that had made him what he was now. He wore it as a warning to anyone he met, a sign as clear as he could make it that he was not safe.

Most of all he wore it because, no matter what his friends told him and no matter what grace he had achieved for himself with recent good acts, he still felt he deserved it.

"I don't know about any of that," he said quietly in response to Reeve's question, "but I'm pretty sure it can't _always_ be the end of the world."

That got a chuckle, at least. "Well, let's hope our expert will be able to give us some good news tomorrow." Reeve levered himself up from his chair with a deep breath. "In the meantime, I guess all we can do is continue to wait."

Vincent nodded. He intended to keep sorting through the documents from the facility, of course. He rarely slept any more, hardly ever felt the need. Whether because of his altered body or because he had slept too long already or because of the terrible nightmares he suffered when he did sleep – it didn't matter. He would work through the night.

Reeve offered Shelke a parting nod, and left them to their mountain of uncharted data.

* * *

It was close to morning when Vincent suddenly remembered the recording device, the one with the dead batteries. Shelke was asleep in her chair, draped over her work terminal. Despite the advancements they had lately made with her hormone therapy, she was still looking uncommonly childlike for her age. He chose not to wake her.

A quick but intense search of the lab turned up two batteries of the correct size, which he swapped out for the duds. Rewind, play.

The voice sounding back to him through the device was achingly familiar.

"_April seventeenth, Doctor Grimoire Valentine. Investigation of the grotto I have discovered in the Nibel area has turned up several findings in only one day. Most exciting of these is, of course–"_

There was a sound like transmission interference, then nothing. The rest of the tape was blank. He advanced it several minutes at a time and continued listening for more, but there was nothing. Oddly, the tape had been at the end when he had pressed rewind. His instincts told him there had been a recording, and that it had been covered over. But why? And by whom?

Perhaps someone in the massive WRO facility would have the ability to reclaim what had once been on the tape. It seemed like the sort of thing that should be possible. When it came to his work, Vincent was not inclined to accept even the concept of a dead end. He was the guy who _made_ a way if there was none.

He put the recorder aside and sat thinking over everything he had seen so far. Most of the files he had reviewed had been applications of some kind – maddeningly unhelpful. None of them had names, even, just designations. Each application included a detailed questionnaire, delving far deeper into these people's lives than he was comfortable reading. In addition to the questionnaire was a comparatively short interview, the point of which seemed to be for each applicant to explain why he thought he should be chosen to do – what, exactly? It was unclear. All he could glean was that these men had been chosen from a highly exclusive pool of very intelligent, very accomplished, well-educated individuals.

He had theories, none of them pleasant. At the moment, none of them able to be proven, either. As Shelke had already observed, it was like the records were not meant to make sense. Like a cipher with no key.

Vincent was still sitting, thinking, when Reeve and his expert arrived. He could feel his expression going cold and hard when he saw who his friend had brought with him. The sound of the door opening and closing roused Shelke, who sat up looking more than a little shamefaced at having dozed off on the job. As if anyone would blame her, or say she had not been working hard enough.

When Reeve had talked about an expert on Ancient Lore, Vincent had been expecting a squirrelly academic type. Someone who had spent years with his head buried in books, soaking up knowledge for its own sake. The kind of person who would get excited about the discovery of another old alphabet, or an ancient broken building in some remote corner of the planet.

He had not been expecting Tseng.

They had never been formally introduced, actually, but Vincent still knew him on sight. And of course Tseng recognized him as well. Vincent was aware that he had become sort of a legend to the Turks, after his disappearance.

Reeve looked far too cheerful. "Vincent," he started in the tone of an explanation, "you may remember–"

"Yeah."

The three men regarded each other silently for a moment.

Surprisingly, it was Tseng who offered something like an olive branch. "I know what you're thinking."

"I doubt that."

The man who had led the Turks under Rufus Shinra grimaced. "Well, whatever you think, I _do_ know what I'm talking about where the Ancients are concerned. It started as a hobby, I guess, while we were still tracking Miss Gainsborough. I doubt you'd find anyone alive who knows more on the subject."

To that Vincent made no reply. It was not that he disliked the man for any specific reason. He had no moral high ground from which to judge. It was just that it didn't sit right with any of his professional instincts to trust a former enemy, one who had yet to prove himself.

"If it makes you feel any better," Reeve offered, "I vouch for him. He has been doing quite a lot of work for me on the side. Just like you."

Vincent grunted before he could stop himself.

Tseng's answering smile was small and business-like and gone quickly.

"What can you tell us," Shelke put in unexpectedly, sounding mildly exasperated, "about the people the Ancients referred to as the Avadi?"

As if given his orders by a superior, Tseng snapped to. "The Avadi were long gone already by the time of the Ancients, even though they were supposedly immortal." His voice had changed too, sounding now more professional than ever. Vincent had to admit that maybe he _had_ done his research. "They were revered by the Ancients, nearly god-like in their power and beauty. It was believed they had the ability to control the planet's magic. By the time their society fell, they had reached a level of knowledge and technology to rival or surpass where we are today."

It was Reeve who asked this time, brow deeply furrowed once more. "What happened to them?"

Tseng only shook his head. "The Ancients didn't know. There was some mention in the texts of a war with humans, but that does not seem to have been the cause of their fall. Not directly, anyway. Perhaps they simply dwindled to nothing through the years, like the Ancients themselves."

Reeve thought about that for a minute, eyes on the floor. When he spoke again, he seemed already to have come to a decision. "I suppose what we really need to know is this: Do the Avadi have a history of being dangerous to humans? You said something about a war; do we have any reason to believe the woman we have here might mean us harm?"

The man who had hunted Aerith across the planet shrugged succinctly. "How much can you trust anyone? Sephiroth had no reason to mean us harm, and yet he found one. There is nothing in the texts of the Ancients to indicate that the Avadi were a violent or a war-like race, but they _were_ powerful. If you want to be a realist, you have to acknowledge that there is at least one bad seed in every good crop. You have to wonder, too, why she was asleep and who put her there. If you've got a rogue Avadi here, she could be capable of just about anything. She has the potential to be at least as destructive as Sephiroth, if not more so, if she chooses to."

Vincent could feel himself scowling again. He watched Reeve and Shelke absorb the new information.

The girl spoke first. "Is there no mention in the texts you studied of a sleeping Avadi? A legendary sleeper of any kind? Anything that might explain who she is and why she was found like that?"

Tseng shook his head, black hair swinging heavily. "But I would be willing to search my references again."

"And look through what we have here, I hope," Reeve prompted. "Vincent brought back a lot of material from that lab, and at least some of it appears to have been taken from Ancient texts."

The Wutaian Turk's eyes lit up. "Of course, I'd be happy to have a look at your resources."

Feeling irritated and just a little bit spiteful, Vincent stared blankly at his erstwhile enemy. "Will Rufus be able to spare you for so long?"

Ignoring Reeve's scowl and Vincent's implied jab, Tseng nodded briskly. "If we might be helping to avert another planetary crisis, Rufus will be more than happy to spare me or any other tool at his disposal for as long as necessary."

* * *

It seemed to make Reeve feel better to have Tseng present, as though he could now say that he was expending all available resources to solve the problem at hand. When another two days had passed and the woman was now fully awake without displaying any signs of anger or aggression, Vincent was able to talk Reeve into being a little more humane.

He went, himself, to deliver the news.

She was no longer in the bed, he saw at once. She had moved the chair to the far side of the room, against the wall that would have a window in it if this was not so much like a prison cell, and was sitting there facing the door. His Turk brain agreed that this was the right move, the best way to feel less vulnerable in her current surroundings. Her bearing was impressive – imperious and sharp-eyed, without the least hint of fear.

It would have been an understatement to say she had the poise of a queen. There was something in her manner that was beyond assured, beyond secure. It was not arrogance. It was something harder to define. Not that she thought herself important – not like young Rufus Shinra – but that she _knew_ she was. Unquestionably. That she knew herself to be the most important figure in any room in any company. And that she seemed to find the matter so boring and well-established that it was well past time to move on from it onto something less annoyingly inescapable. In fact, she seemed almost desperate to be ignored, a need with which he could fully sympathize.

She glanced quickly up at him and away again when he entered the room. He was getting used to it, but he still didn't like it.

"Why is it always you?" she asked of the floor at his feet. It was not clear from her tone whether she was irritated by the fact that he was the only one who ever came to see her, or whether she simply wanted to get her facts straight. There was no readable emotion on her sharp-featured face, either – no clue as to her mental state besides the stubborn unwillingness to look at him.

He stepped closer to her; but having no place now to sit in the small room, he had to content himself with standing beside the bed. He told the truth unflinchingly. "The others are afraid of you."

She sighed, but her tone was still inscrutable. The strange accent helped with that. "Humans have always feared my kind." She blinked, lifting her head just a little, and for a moment it seemed she might finally raise her eyes to his face. The moment passed and she was still studying the tiles at his booted feet. "Yet you do not. Why?"

There were a number of answers he could give to that question, but the time was not yet right. It might never be. He drew a slow, careful breath. "I'm not sure." He considered before adding, "I'm not really human, myself."

Her gaze traveled as far as the gleaming claw on his left hand and settled there.

Vincent found himself flexing the articulated fingers nervously and forced himself to stop. He waited to see if she intended to respond, but she did not. Again he noted that there was a distinct lack of visible fear in her, even as she studied his monstrous armored appendage. But that was irrelevant. He had come for a specific reason, not to turn into a bumbling adolescent all over again.

"Reeve has agreed to let you leave headquarters, as long as you remain under guard," he told her. He had practiced how to say this, how not to come off like a creepy kidnapper. He wasn't sure if he would manage it. "You're going to come home with me, until he feels confident that you aren't a threat." Vincent's intentions really were good, and it was not even a self-deception. All he wanted was for her to want life again, and that would not happen if she was forced to rot in this tiny, clinically bare cell until Reeve decided she was human enough to be trusted.

Well, that wasn't _all_ he wanted, but he fully meant to behave like a professional. This was a job, not personal recreation.

Her lips thinned against one another, the first display of emotion she had showed yet in the conversation. "You are to be my jailor?" There was too much bite in the question for his comfort.

He shook his head even though she was still focused on his claw. "Not quite. I think you'd be more comfortable anywhere other than here. He knows I would be able to stop you, if it came to that."

The intense green eyes narrowed.

"I hope it _doesn't_ come to that," he added quietly. "I don't believe it will. But it's either me or a small army to guard you. It's a better use of everyone's time if you just come with me." After he said it, he realized it would sound like a boast and he wished he could take it back. It was the truth, though. Those were the only two arrangements Reeve had been comfortable with.

Not one to backpedal, Vincent grimaced and waited to see how she would respond.

"So," there was mockery in the soft clear voice, refreshingly straightforward and undiluted, "_I_ am meant to fear _you_? Poetic." She forced herself to meet his eyes. There was a sickly desolation in hers.

He shook his head again, but he was deeply out of his depths. No matter how badly he needed to say the right things to this woman, he had no idea what those might be. And he was not going to fumble until he hit upon the words.

She sighed. "When will–?"

She stopped because Reeve came into the room just then, shattering whatever mood or tension had been building between them. Her eyes, predictably, quickly shifted away from Vincent to the newcomer.

"Ah," the Commissioner said, taking in Vincent's presence. "I assume you have briefed our guest on the suggested arrangement?"

Her lip curled in a mirthless smile, but which of Reeve's particularly ill-chosen words had caused it Vincent could not guess. All of them, perhaps. Her reaction did not go unnoticed, for Reeve had the grace to look apologetic.

"You understand," he said to her, "this is only temporary."

The woman looked down at her lap, black hair falling forward to obscure most of her face. "I understand. I have no choice but to do as you decide."

There. Spoken as submissively as Reeve could possibly want. Only, Vincent didn't buy it.

Reeve seemed to, though, probably because he wanted to. "I really am hoping the need for caution will be over soon and we can start to help you put your life back together. I assure you, I'm not usually such a bully."

The keystone theft and blackmailing incident sprang instantly to mind, as did the time he all but press-ganged Vincent into fighting Deepground single-handedly, but Vincent remained silent. He did not need to make this woman any more uncomfortable than she was already.

Again, though, Reeve's chosen words brought forth a bitter response. She glanced up at the Commissioner with that small grim smile and shook her head, but said nothing.

"The doctor wants to have one more look at you," Reeve added after an uncomfortable silence, "and then you will be free to go whenever Vincent is ready." He smiled reassuringly, sharing the expression with Vincent as well. "We really don't mean you any harm. We're just trying to make sure the feeling is mutual. The planet has been through so much already."

That almost certainly made no sense to her, if she had been asleep for several thousand years. But she accepted it graciously, with a small nod. "As I have said, I must do whatever it is you decide I must do. If you say this man," she did not even flick her gaze in Vincent's direction, "is to be my prison guard in a more attractive cage than this, I suppose I should be grateful for what you perceive to be a mercy. It is not the captive's place to dictate the terms of her confinement."

Reeve sighed. It very clearly exhausted him to talk to her at any length. He valiantly gave it another go anyway. "Please try not to think of it in terms of cages and jailors. It is not my intention to cause you any further grief. I'm hoping you'll be able to forgive me when this is over."

She blinked slowly. "You forgot to say how you would like us to be _friends_."

A dry chuckle rose in Vincent's throat before he could stop it. Reeve cast him a glare.

Unexpectedly, she relented. "Truly, I do understand. You know nothing about me or my kind. I could be an enemy. I am a mystery to you, and you seem to be saying you have recently come through a war. Trust is difficult to come by." She glanced briefly at Vincent as she said that last, oddly. "Do what you must."

She had a strangely formal way of speaking, on top of the accent and the struggle to express herself in a language that was not her own. And she was not just perceptive, but _fast_. He really did not want to be feeling so boyishly infatuated.

Reeve relaxed noticeably. "Thank you for your cooperation." He managed a genuine smile. "It shouldn't be too bad, staying with Vincent. He may not say much, but he's a stand-up guy. And you'll find the accommodations at his place aren't too shabby."

Vincent tried not to sigh, stolidly enduring Reeve's "praise." "I'll be back later," he told her quietly even though she wasn't looking at him. "We'll go as soon as the doctor clears you."

"It's getting late," Reeve objected, eyebrows high. "Wouldn't it be better to wait until morning?"

He turned to fix his friend with a flat stare. "Believe me, Reeve, the beds here are no more appealing than a night on the road." Glancing at the woman in the chair, he saw her make a complicated gesture with her slender fingers that strangely managed to convey reluctant agreement.

"Hmph," the Commissioner retorted sourly. "Is _that_ why you never sleep?"

"As good a reason as any other."

Reeve laughed at that, finally something like himself.

The nameless Avadi woman, however, did not appear amused as the two men left her alone again. She looked, still, – always – bleak.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Five**_

**The** doctor's exam went as quickly and painlessly as expected, really just a formality. Reynolds cleared the Avadi woman by late afternoon and Vincent came back to lead her to pseudo-freedom. She walked with him out of the small recovery room, for the first time allowing him the opportunity to see her body in motion. She was taller than he had expected her to be – not much shorter than him, actually. She carried herself like a predator, intelligent and controlled and deadly. Like so much else about her, it was not at all reassuring.

She still had nothing to wear but the flimsy institutional white pants and wrap top from the Shinra lab, not even a pair of shoes. Even though this did not seem to bother her, Vincent knew he would have to do something about it soon.

More interestingly, it soon became apparent just how unfamiliar the woman was with the world and the technology she now found surrounding her. Though she made no complaint and asked for no help, every little thing was clearly a challenge to be figured out and overcome. The automatic doors, the lights, the elevators, the card readers. It was all new and alien to her. He wondered, again, just how long she had been asleep. His own thirty years were starting to seem insignificant.

When they got to the garage, she stopped and studied the vehicles there, trying to extract some kind of sense from them. There was no way she would remember which car was Vincent's, and she would have no idea how to get into it since she had been asleep the first time.

Vincent wordlessly walked around to the passenger side of his monstrous old black cruiser and opened the door for her. In his time, this would have been the proper polite etiquette, anyway, even though the women now were suddenly too independent to appreciate the simple kindness of an opened door.

She followed and climbed in without looking at him, not that he was surprised by it any more. He closed the door after her and went around to his side.

Obviously, Vincent was no stranger to silence, and he was perfectly able to take it in stride. Something about _this _silence, though, felt wrong and was beginning to take its toll on him. He just… he needed a connection with this woman. No. That was not quite right. He _had_ a connection with this woman, and he needed her to know it. To feel it too. He needed…

Unfortunately, Vincent was no good at articulating his feelings, even to himself. He never had been.

He sat in the driver's seat a moment without putting the key in the ignition, knowing he had to say something. There had been a time, in his first life, when he would have simply blurted something out and dealt with the consequences afterward. And he had died for it. He was more careful now.

"I don't mean this as an intrusion," he finally chose to say to her, "but I still don't know your name. I will need something to call you."

A tiny puff of breath passed her lips, the nearly inaudible sound conveying somehow that his question and the prospect of answering it were the most wearisome occurrences in a life plagued by fools and their many impositions. He could not help smirking a little; but only a little, because she did not answer him and the silence between them stretched long again.

Forcing himself not to sigh his frustration, Vincent jammed the key into the ignition and brought the engine roaring to life.

"_Loríen."_

She said it so softly he would not have caught it but for his artificially enhanced hearing. Her eyes were still fixed firmly on the windshield in front of her, but he could see a killing sadness in her profile.

"My name is Loríen Raia."

He felt like a child all over again, a clumsy boy fumbling for the right words to say to the pretty girl. "Loríen," he repeated stupidly, berating himself for it.

The thing to do, with any other woman, would have been to offer some flattering compliment about the lyric beauty of the name. But she was not any other woman. She was _this_ one, and she was a total mystery to him. The only indisputable fact he would be prepared to swear to was that her heart was so obviously broken she might as well have been wearing the shards strung on display about her neck like a gory choker. Airy nothings on the beauty of her name would be painfully out of place as an offering to her needs.

"Unusual," he said merely.

To that she made no response, did not even change her expression.

* * *

Dawn was still a couple hours off when they reached the far edge of Kalm. The car passed through wrought iron gates crested by a design featuring a gothic winged cherub. The long gravel drive beyond finally gave way to a view of the imposing building that had, in better days, been widely known to the locals as Valentine Manor. At least, in better lighting the view would have been a good one. As it was, he could imagine that for her the place was little more than an impression of soaring height and sprawling mass.

When the car rumbled to a stop and Vincent had shut off the motor, he looked up at the majestic looming stone walls of his house as if seeing it for the first time. In a way he was, as he tried to imagine what she was making of it all.

He still had trouble thinking of it as _his_ house; to some part of him, it would always be his father's. It had been in the family for generations, left to him but never visited after Grimoire's death then lost in a shuffle of bureaucratic paperwork when he himself had been presumed dead for so many years. Reeve had sorted out the deed following Omega, as a sort of thank you for saving the world yet again. Vincent had spent much of his time in the last three years restoring the place.

Yet another awkward moment passed between the two people in the car.

He had a hard time making himself initiate conversation under the best circumstances. This was not one of those. Far too much seemed to depend on every word he said to this broken, closed-off woman.

"This is my home," he tried, going for concise. "You are welcome to stay here as long as you need to."

That small, bitter smile briefly twisted her lips. "For as long as your friend Reeve makes me, you mean." There was so much despair in her tone.

"You are not a prisoner here," he stated decisively, well aware he was at odds with Reeve on the subject. He would be firm in his stance, if he had to. If it came to that. After everything she had already been through, she did not need this too.

Loríen _hmphed_ her disbelief. Unexpectedly, she glanced in his direction for a moment, the green eyes filling again with that strange combination of angry pain before flicking over to stare again out the windshield.

It literally _hurt_, that look. He struggled to keep his tone neutral. "I don't know what you're seeing when you look at me, but I am not a threat to you. I promise."

Her lips tightened. "It is not that I fear you."

Even though he did not disbelieve her, it was still surprising to hear her say it. He knew what he looked like, the monster Hojo had made of him. He was impressed again by her courage, even as he ached inside for her suffering. "Whatever it is, then…" He paused. What would he tell her? That everything was fine? That she had nothing to worry about? That her pain would go away?

Lies. He would not lie to her. "You can relax." It was a weak assertion and he knew it, but it would have to do.

She turned her head so that the curtain of her black hair was obscuring any readable part of her face. He could hear her heartbeat, not quite steady as she took a deep breath.

"The man I loved… he is dead because of me." Her voice was almost too quiet to hear, but there was a harshness in it. "We could not marry because he was not of my people. I sent him away, on a quest to… prove himself. But he died. I killed him with my pride. _And you look just like him_."

The words were so raw, so heavy with guilt and despair he could almost feel her pain twisting inside him like a knife she had just jammed into his chest.

She looked at him then, the green eyes intense with emotion beneath drawn eyebrows. "So, no. I can not _relax_."

Stunned, literally unable to put a thought together in response to that revelation, Vincent sat in the driver's seat staring blankly at the enigmatic woman until she turned away and let herself out of the car. He watched her make her way to the arched front door of his house and stand there waiting, grief radiating from every elegant line of her body.

He forced himself to move finally, but it was difficult. He could not imagine what he would say to her, now. Of _course_ she could not bear to look at him, no matter how much he needed her to. This was a wound he was inflicting on her anew every moment, and there was nothing he could do about it. And now she was stuck with him.

By the time he got to the door, he had at least managed to slow his accelerated heartbeat.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, but she did not respond. She did not even acknowledge his presence beside her.

A voice in his mind – he could not tell if it was his own thought – pointed out not-so-helpfully that if she had loved a man who looked just like him, then at least he knew he was her type. He decided that was just about the stupidest thing any of his inner voices had ever told him.

He could feel the heat radiating from her body, smell the exotic scent of her. He was not the only one who wanted her: all of his demons were clamoring for a taste, each drawn to her for different reasons but all of them hungry in his own way. It was difficult, so difficult to resist touching her when he was fighting not just his own desire but all the others' as well.

His hand was shaking as he put the key to the lock and let her inside.

Vincent flicked the light switch in the marble-tiled foyer and the old-fashioned chandelier glowed ambiently to life overhead. Loríen did not bother to have a look about her. She simply waited, giving the impression that nothing at all mattered and never would again.

He sighed, leading her silently to the parlor. He switched on the small end-table lamp and gestured for her to sit.

"Give me a minute to put some fresh sheets on the guest bed. We'll do the tour tomorrow."

It _was_ tomorrow, really. Semantics. It was clear she was in no mood for him at the moment, not after baring herself and her sorrow the way she had just now in the car. He would give her some time.

She said nothing, but she did take the seat he offered. Reluctantly, he left her alone while he went upstairs to prepare her room.

The part of his mind that was Hellmasker whispered that he shouldn't bother. He should simply carry her up to his bed and have his way with her there until she screamed. Hellmasker liked screaming. Vincent, unfortunately, _also_ wanted to carry her up to his bed. But he wanted her to enjoy it. He pushed aside the horrific bloody images his demon was caressing delightedly and made himself go to the spare bedroom furthest away from his own.

Vincent pulled clean linens out of the closet and made the bed methodically. The dark hours of the night were always the most difficult for him. These particular struggles were nothing new, actually. The only difference was the presence of a woman in the house. It had been like this with Yuffie, too, during their brief relationship two years ago.

Galian had been most fond of her, like an enormous puppy who liked to play rough and didn't know his own strength. If she had ever guessed what was going on inside him, the battle he had to fight every time she surprised him with a kiss or leaped uninvited into his lap as he tried to read, she had never let on. Sometimes she was more perceptive than he expected her to be, but at other times he found himself wanting to shout at what seemed like her deliberate thickness.

He had never hurt her, though. Had never even come close to it. In some ways, even though the relationship had ultimately ended badly, he still felt a deep gratitude to her for the opportunity she had given him to prove to himself that he _could_ be among people without endangering them. He knew now, as he had not before, that he could control himself no matter how strong his demons' urges. He knew his own power now, knew that he was his own master and theirs too, in spite of what they sometimes tried to insinuate. He had to stay alert, yes, but he no longer thought the battle was a losing one. It was just… a tiring way to live.

Once the bed was made up, he checked the adjoining bathroom to make sure it had a spare toothbrush and towels and soap. It was clean enough – there was an old married couple in town he paid to come in once a week to take care of the garden and grounds, and the woman liked to do some tidying up inside the house while she was at it.

He tried not to imagine what they would have to say about his new house guest. They had been very forward with their thoughts on Yuffie, which he had probably been a little too imperious in informing them he did not welcome.

When he had assured himself that everything was as ready as it should be, and when he had quieted the beasts again, he went back to the parlor to fetch her. She was exactly where he had left her: on the sofa, staring into the cold dead fireplace with misery visible in every sharp line of her face.

"Come on," he invited, watching her for a reaction. She blinked. "I'll show you your room."

Like a robot incapable of independent thought or motion or any feelings on the subject, she stood mechanically and followed him upstairs. Her eyes had gone quite dead since her confession in the car.

The room Vincent had chosen for her was one of the more beautiful in the whole house, in his opinion. He had tried to recapture what his mother had done with it, all Wutaian colors and woods and motifs, a little piece of her homeland in the middle of Kalm. Yuffie said it was tacky; and yet, interestingly, it was the room she always chose to stay in.

Loríen hardly looked left or right as she came to stand inside.

It didn't seem right to just leave her here without another word, but he had no idea what to say. He considered for a moment and realized he should at least have shown her where to find him if she needed anything. That would have to wait, now.

"I'll see you in the morning," he offered, when he couldn't think of anything else that would not sound fatuous.

He started for the door, but was stopped by her soft clear voice.

"Vincent." It was the first time she had used his name. He liked what her accent did to it.

He turned to look at her and was surprised to find that her eyes were squarely upon him, bright and weary and sad. "I am sorry."

What she was apologizing for, he could only guess. More important was the fact that she was making even a small effort to connect. It had been a long, interesting day.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six**_

**There** were only three options. One of them was out of the question. The second would require listening to Cid shout profanity over the phone.

Sighing, Vincent dialed the only viable choice.

"Seventh Heaven," the warm voice on the other end said cheerily, despite the early hour.

It had been a while since they had last spoken. He hoped she wouldn't give him a hard time about not calling. He hated that.

"Tifa. I need your help."

"_Vincent?"_ There was far too much disbelief in her voice. It hadn't been _that_ long since he had last called. Less than a year, certainly. "Is that really you?"

He sighed. A colossal headache had started building behind his eyes as soon as the thought had come to him that he was going to have to ask one of his female friends for help. It had been going strong for a couple of hours now, while Vincent waited for the morning to progress far enough that he wouldn't be waking Tifa with his call. It was still obscenely early.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he tried again. "How soon can you get to Kalm?"

Her laugh came through the receiver loud and clear. "Hey, hold on. You forgot the part where you tell me what in the world is going on." There was a whispery scratching sound, as of a hand covering the receiver on her end, and he heard her muffled voice saying to someone else, "Yes, it really is Vincent." A pause. "I know." The hand was removed, then she said, still amused, "Alright. You were about to tell me a story, and it should probably be a good one."

Another sigh. This would be so much easier in person, but he obviously was not going to be afforded that luxury. Where to start, and how to keep it brief? "I have an unexpected house guest," he explained. "I found her at an abandoned Shinra research facility. You can talk to Reeve if you want the details. She has no possessions but the clothes she's wearing, and since she may be here for a while, I thought –"

"Got it," Tifa interrupted brightly. "I'll be there by lunch."

That had gone about as well as he could have expected. "Thanks, Tifa," he said gratefully. And then added quickly, before she could hang up, "By the way –"

"Don't worry," Tifa replied to his unspoken plea, "I'll keep it quiet." _Click._

Not bad at all, really. He had no doubt she would be calling Reeve even now for more information. Even if the Commissioner fed her a line about dangerous non-humans and possible new Calamities, it would still save Vincent the trouble of a long explanation. He got himself a handful of painkillers and went to see if Loríen was awake yet.

As it turned out, she had not been to sleep at all. Neither had he, so he kept quiet about it. She was deep in the window seat, long legs drawn up in front of her as she stared out at the view of the garden below. The lights were off, the room lit only by the sunlight streaming in, which meant she had been in the dark before. When he got closer, he saw that she wasn't really taking in the view at all. Her focus was all inward, and he could imagine she was not happy with what she saw there.

"Good morning," he offered quietly.

The sound of his voice made her jump, but she did not look at him.

He sighed. "I'm going to make some breakfast. Just wanted to let you know you have time to clean up first, if you like."

She nodded but said nothing.

As he left, he had the distinct impression that she would stay there, just like that without moving an eyelash, for the rest of eternity if he let her.

* * *

Tifa was as good as her word, pulling up in a cab in front of Vincent's house right around noon. He heard the car from the kitchen where he had been messing around with the old plumbing, and went out to greet her. He got there as she was paying the driver.

She had, he noticed, a suitcase with her. Well, fair enough. He was the one asking a favor which had dragged her from Edge to Kalm on no notice.

She knew better than to try greeting him with a kiss or a hug, which he appreciated. Instead, she smiled beatifically and thrust her suitcase out toward him. He took it from her without complaint.

"Vincent Valentine." Her smile widened. "It's been a while, hasn't it? I hope you haven't waited for the world to be ending again before calling me."

He allowed himself a small smile. "You did talk to Reeve after all."

She laughed at that, heading for the door. He followed her.

"So this woman," Tifa started, voice warm with amusement as though she knew how annoyed he would be by her questions and intended to ask them anyway. Very probably the case. "She's not human?"

Vincent shook his head. She knew the answer to that already. He went into the foyer behind her and shut the door. It was much darker inside. He never turned on the lights until sundown, if he could help it. Efficient energy usage was one of his quirks, always had been even when he had worked for Shinra. Anal-retentive, some of the guys in the office had called him. Not to his face.

"And you're supposed to be guarding her?" Tifa pressed. "Where is she?"

"Back patio." He decided he did not need to add that she had been there since forcing down a nominal breakfast, more than four hours ago. Maybe the fresh air and open sky would do her some good, after so many years of confinement beneath the earth.

Tifa was nodding. "Is she really dangerous?"

A stony glare was probably not the correct response to the question. Vincent made himself say, calmly, "Of course she is. So are you."

"And so are you," Tifa replied knowingly. "You like her, don't you?"

How much bull had Reeve fed her? This time he did answer with a stony glare.

She had a very pleasant smile, even if he did not agree that this was the right moment for it. "All right."

"Whatever Reeve told you," he decided he ought to add, "you should know she has been through terrible things and she is not adjusting well."

Tifa studied his face, but he wasn't sure what she thought she would find there. After a moment, she nodded slowly. The playful amusement was gone, replaced by her innate motherly concern. "What made you offer to take her in?" She sounded as though she thought she knew the answer already, and Vincent didn't like that.

He considered the question. There were a lot of things he could say, but most of them he didn't want to. "She's in pain, and she needs help, but she doesn't want it. I think I know something about that."

Tifa nodded again, more serious than ever. "Time to meet her, I guess."

Vincent deposited Tifa's suitcase at the foot of the stairs. "Come on, then." That one question notwithstanding, she was actually being very reasonable about all of this and he knew he should be grateful. You could always trust Tifa to be capable and discreet, though – the reason he had called _her_.

The meeting went about as expected. Loríen remained outwardly oblivious to their presence until Vincent called upon her to greet Tifa. Both women were as polite as they ought to have been, though Loríen was a bit stiff and formal with it on top of being so removed. Tifa did not press things by responding with aggressive sparkle, as Yuffie would have. She made a civil remark on the subject of Loríen's name, and was rewarded with a solemn _thank you_. She then very tactfully moved the focus away from the woman who obviously wanted to be ignored to ask Vincent about the lunch he had offered.

Vincent found himself liking Tifa more than ever. "You realize," he rumbled with feigned annoyance, "you never actually _asked_."

Tifa squealed with indignation as simulated as his irritation. "Vincent Valentine, don't you _dare_."

Loríen had retaken her seat and gone back to her absorbed study of the middle distance between the patio and the line of rose bushes at the entrance to the garden walk, and was no longer paying any attention to the two of them.

"So demanding," he deadpanned. "If you're going to be that way, you had better come in and help me make something."

"You've got to be just about the worst host ever," Tifa pretended to grumble. The two of them went back into the house together, their timely exit perfectly scripted.

Once the patio door was closed behind them, Tifa swung to face him with wide eyes.

"My god, Vincent. You could have mentioned the fact that she's drop-dead gorgeous. Even _you_ have to have noticed." There was no jealousy in her tone, only wistful near-awe. Tifa really was an amazing woman. He hoped Cloud realized how lucky he was.

He knew he couldn't respond to that without giving away far too much, so he said nothing. Simply raised an eyebrow and moved past her toward the kitchen.

"You _do _like her."

He stopped. Apparently _not_ answering gave away too much anyway. "Tifa–"

Tifa came up behind him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. He tried not to flinch away from her touch, managed to only stiffen a little. Being cut up in a lab had done some horrible things to his personal space and boundary issues.

"It's all right," she said softly. Only that. And she went on to the kitchen without him.

* * *

Granted, the sum of money he had given Tifa to spend had been a substantial one. He didn't know much about the cost of current ladies' fashions, but he did know he could make some serious quality modifications to his guns with what he had allowed her. But he was still surprised when she came back late in the evening with _so much_ stuff. Not just clothes, it soon became clear, but all the other things he would never have thought of himself: a baffling array of hygiene and beauty products and other important small nothings. Which was the very reason he had known he needed one of his female friends to do this instead of blundering through it himself. It exhausted him to even think about how much shopping Tifa had endured.

She, on the other hand, seemed to have had a great time doing him this particular favor. In fact, he could not remember having seen her so girlishly excited before, not even on her wedding day.

"I've never had the pleasure of buying so many pretty things with someone else's money," she bubbled as she brought in the final load. The foyer was literally full of boxes and bags. It turned out to have been a good thing she had talked him into lending her his car for the enterprise. An entire army of cabs might not have done the job. "Oh, and by the way, thank you for the beautiful pearl earrings you bought me as a thank you for my hard work today."

A part of him was horrified in a primal _male_ sort of way. But more of him was amused, and he was not amused often enough. "I had no idea I was so generous."

Tifa laughed. She seemed to be laughing more these days than he remembered. It was nice.

"You're going to make me carry all of this up myself, aren't you?" He eyed the mound of feminine goods doubtfully, the horror briefly winning out.

"You're such a gentleman, Vincent," Tifa answered cheerfully. "Where's Loríen? I want to show her some things." She carefully picked three bags out of the mess and stood waiting for his answer.

He stopped in the midst of bending down for the first armful and cleared his throat. "Tifa, she's not…" He didn't want to make his friend feel bad, but… "Don't expect an enthusiastic response."

"She's depressed. I get it, Vincent." Tifa waved his concern away lightly. "I spent enough time with you in the old days to know what to expect."

_The old days._ Vincent felt a small smile coming on, but there was bitterness in it too. "She's in her room." He waved a hand in the general direction before resuming his attention to the mountain Tifa had created for him to move. "Don't get too involved, though. Dinner has been ready and waiting for an hour now."

As Tifa bounded off in a frighteningly Yuffie-like fashion, Vincent realized he may as well not have said anything. She lived in a man's world doing men's work and pretty much never had the freedom to indulge her womanly side. She would eat this up until she was full and there would be no stopping her. And he did not begrudge her the opportunity.

* * *

At the intervals when Vincent was in Loríen's room, depositing load after load of her new things, he saw what he considered interesting snapshots of the interaction between the two women there.

The first few trips revealed nothing he had not expected – Tifa happily showing off a blouse or a pair of boots as the Avadi woman tried not to appear as completely disinterested as she really was. It seemed manners were of some importance to her, if she would make the effort even in the midst of so deep a despair; a fact he filed away with all the other observations.

Halfway through the pile that wouldn't stop, he noticed something had changed. Loríen was actually listening to Tifa. Still grim, still solemn and broken and lost. But she was giving her full concentration to whatever it was the kind-hearted martial artist was saying. And her attention, once offered, was intense. Tifa seemed maybe just a little bit intimidated by it, but she was hiding it well.

Vincent knew that if he lingered to find out what they were discussing, the spell would be shattered. With his enhanced hearing he could have overheard them from any part of the house if he wanted to, but that would be a violation of their privacy. He respected both of them too much for that.

By the time he brought up the last of it, the two women seemed to have reached some kind of understanding of one another. Not that there would be any giggling or pillow-fights or girlish gossip in their future, but there was a kind of bond. He was glad.

"This is all of it," he told them both, sorry to be interrupting. "I'm going to lay dinner out now."

Tifa offered a strangely enigmatic smile. "Thanks, Vincent. We'll be down in a minute."

Loríen was looking at something small in the palm of her hand.

Still not wanting to pry, he went down to the kitchen and went to work serving the dinner he had been keeping warm for Tifa's return. She had made a big enough fuss about wanting it to be ready when she got back that he was justifiably put out with her for taking so long.

He was rummaging for glasses and a bottle of wine when Tifa joined him. Alone.

"She's coming," she said in response to his questioning glance. "You've really got your hands full," she added pensively. "She might be even more messed up than you were."

"_Hmph."_ Even though it might possibly have been the truth. He wasn't sure which end of the comparison was meant to be more insulting. He poured a glass of wine for Tifa as she took a seat at the table.

She delivered a couple small pieces of news as they waited, conversing as easily as though this happened all the time. But everything she had said was pushed from his mind the moment Loríen appeared in the arched entry to the dining room.

She had put on one of her new articles of clothing, what Vincent would have to call an evening gown, showing quite a lot of very attractive flesh. It was an expensive dress, even he could see that, and yet she wore it with the comfortable ease of someone long accustomed to luxury and formal conditions. Another piece of the puzzle to be stored away.

He noticed Tifa smirking at him and made an effort to compose himself. "You look nice," he mumbled.

Tifa stifled a giggle, hand to mouth.

Loríen regarded him openly. She looked more relaxed than he had yet seen her, as though she was now somehow more within her natural element – though her eyebrows were still drawn in the perpetual look of weary unhappiness. "I feel I must thank you. You have expended a great deal of effort and funds on my account, though I have merited neither and there is certainly no way I can repay you." He enjoyed the formality of her speech patterns.

Vincent had never been good at accepting gratitude, but he could tell how much thought and care she had put into the gesture and he did not want to disregard that. "You're welcome." It didn't sound like enough. He thought a moment before adding, "I was once offered the same kind of compassion from people I never thought I would deserve to call friends. Maybe one day you'll have the opportunity, as I do now, to pass the kindness on to one in need of it."

The woman continued to study him, reflecting on his words. Tifa, too, was watching him, though she looked far more like she was considering _him_ than what he had said. She knew enough about him to know something of what he meant. It made him uncomfortable, but he had chosen his words knowing what Tifa would read into them and he could live with it.

"I hope," Loríen finally said carefully, eyes lowering to the table before her, "you will not consider me ungracious if I say I doubt the possibility of that."

Tifa was silent, watching them both, waiting to see how Vincent would react.

He answered steadily. "No, I won't. But I do hope you're proven wrong."

She didn't say anything to that, so he took the opportunity to bid them both a good meal and invite them to begin eating.

Tifa had taken only two bites before making a borderline inappropriate sound of pleasure. "Vincent! I had no idea you could _cook_!"

He grunted, amused by the extent of her surprise. It wasn't even one of his more impressive meals, only a rosemary lamb roast – he had wanted to do a Wellington, but it hadn't been possible, not knowing when to expect Tifa back. "Picked it up as a Turk. Self-preservation. The cafeteria food was inedible."

Her laugh came readily, natural and pleasant on the ears. Loríen, however, may as well have been in another dimension for all the attention she was paying them now.

"You realize, this blows my mind," Tifa said, eyes twinkling. "I've never been able to imagine you actually _eating_."

"Tifa. You've _seen_ me eat." It was true that it would probably take far longer than her remaining lifespan for him to die of starvation if he ever tried it, but that was beside the point. Also, he suspected it would not be considered a polite thing to say in conversation.

She laughed again, shaking her head. "I know. I guess I thought you were just trying to blend in." Her eyes danced. "Yuffie is such a liar."

Oh, no. Any time Yuffie came into a conversation, especially in this sort of context, it never meant anything good for Vincent. He really didn't want to know, but he asked anyway. "Yuffie?"

"She says you can't cook, never sleep, have no sense of color coordination which is why you only wear black and red –" She paused long enough to eye his dark blue button-down with high amusement. "– and that you wear the claw in the shower."

"Well, there is some truth in that." He stopped to drink some of his wine with his conspicuously un-armored left hand. "The joints do collect a lot of grime."

Tifa stifled a giggle.

In point of fact, he rarely wore the gauntlet at home – certainly not when cooking. Yuffie knew that. She had often asked him why he insisted on putting it on at all, but that was a philosophical discussion he was not prepared to enter with her and he could be just as stubborn as any ninja from Wutai.

Vincent resisted the temptation to ask what else Yuffie said about him. Not in front of Loríen, definitely. Not that he really wanted to know, or that he couldn't guess. He found himself looking at Loríen again, his eyes drawn almost against his will.

It really _was_ a problem, how fascinated he was by her. He was going to have to figure out how to distance himself, at least a little. He noticed that she had piled her hair high on her head, tendrils drifting provocatively about her cheekbones and neck. Galian was enjoying the view. There was a scar – previously concealed by the fall of her hair and nearly blending in against the unnatural pallor of her skin – running from the corner of her left eyebrow half-way down the line of her jaw. And then he noticed that her ears were not normal, not rounded as a human's ought to be, but instead came to delicate points.

Unusual. Unsettling, like so much else about her.

She must have felt him watching her, but she did not acknowledge him. She was lifting forkfuls of lamb to her mouth at mechanical intervals, with as little interest in what she was eating as she had shown in anything else.

Tifa kept the conversation moving effortlessly, for which he was grateful. Her supply of Meteor stories seemed endless, and she had picked up on details that Vincent himself had missed, as lost as he had been in his own pain and rage at the time. After listening for a while, he realized she was even more observant than he had given her credit for. And somehow, she managed to see the humorous or the beautiful or the profound even in the darkest of the experiences they had shared.

Loríen finished before either of them and sat waiting silently to be excused. She hadn't eaten much, but he was not going to push the issue as long as she didn't try to starve herself.

In all, the evening went well. The only truly uncomfortable moment came when Tifa suggested getting everyone together for a party at Vincent's house. He knew what she was trying to do – to connect Loríen with people and life again – but he knew the Avadi woman would not be receptive to the idea and might just rebel openly if they threw her into such an unwelcome and overwhelming social situation.

Fortunately, Tifa was not Yuffie and only asked him to think about it. If he had been having this discussion with the Wutaian ninja girl, the guests would have been at his house bearing kegs and bad potluck before he could finish saying _no_. He agreed that he would keep the idea in mind, at least.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter Seven**_

**One** of the few modifications Vincent had made to the property, when he took possession, was the addition of an outdoor firing range. There was more than enough acreage for it. Yuffie teased him about it sometimes, but at others she seemed proud of him for doing something that made him happy – even if it had to do with guns.

He spent the afternoon there after Tifa left for Edge, working with a new handgun he had not yet had a chance to break in, wondering what pastime he might be able to interest his sullen houseguest in. Staring at nothing all day, through a window or on the back patio, was not going to help her come alive again.

He was just heading in, ready for a shower, when he heard a sound that stopped him dead. It was very faint, almost apologetic, and it was a sound he had not heard in… a very long time.

The piano. Someone was playing his piano.

Not _playing_, actually. Just tentatively fingering a few keys in a way that may or may not have been random. But still.

He silently made his way to the music room.

Loríen was there, gazing around at all the displayed instruments with a look of vague dismay creasing her smooth brow, standing beside the piano not to play but as if seeking the comfort of the familiar in a strange environment. Something about her stance made it clear that this was her instrument.

He studied her hands, appraising. They were right for it, the fingers long and lean and strong. It seemed incredible that there should have been pianos in her time. He wondered what her kind of music would sound like, from so long ago.

She noticed him almost as soon as he appeared. Her hand fell away from the keys at once, almost guiltily.

"It was just tuned," he told her, trying to sound pleasant, coming to stand by the open soundbox of the beautiful glossy black grand.

It was an antique at this point, manufactured by a company that had long ago ceased to exist. Concert-scale at seven-foot-two with keys that flowed beneath the fingers like soft butter and a warm, rich sound he had never heard rivaled on another instrument. Or so he remembered.

Loríen took a step back, distancing herself from all association with the exquisite instrument, saying nothing.

"Do you play?" he tried.

She frowned, eyes cast somewhere to the left of him and slightly down. "Do you?" It was a challenge, more resentment in the tone than he had expected.

Shaking his head, he put a hand respectfully to the sleek black wood. "Not any more."

As a matter of fact, there had been a time when most of his life was spent in this room. First one instructor, then another when he far exceeded what the first could teach him. Hours and hours a day he had sat on that bench, achieving proficiency and then excellence. A virtuoso, so they called him. By the time he was twelve, he was giving concerts with the local symphony. It had been his mother's dream for him to travel the world with his music.

And then she got sick.

"Why did you stop?" Loríen demanded, still inexplicably angry.

He studied her for a moment before answering, trying to get his bearings. There was as much of a story here as he had himself – that he could clearly see. "Why did you?"

For several minutes she stared at the pearly white keyboard in contemplative silence, and he started to hope she might actually be trying to answer the question. Eventually, though, she sighed and deferred the subject one more time. "Why do you still keep it tuned?" The defiance had gone out of her, at least.

Vincent soaked in the feel of the cold, lacquered wood beneath his fingertips and considered his answer. Actually, he had never thought about it. He just did it. Ever since reclaiming the house, every six months as a responsible pianist ought to, he had a professional in to keep the instrument in tune and healthy.

"In memory," he finally answered, and it was the truth. In memory and respect for another time, for the innocent boy he used to be, for his mother and her dream both cut off all too soon.

Memory, for better or worse, was the guiding star of Vincent's second life.

* * *

Six days after Loríen arrived at Valentine Manor, it was clear that she had not slept since the tranquilizer had worn off.

It did not seem to be quite as bad on her the same amount of time sleepless would have been for a human, but she _was_ beginning to show signs of a deteriorating physical and mental state. Vincent was not sure how to raise the subject tactfully, so he ended up having to do it the only way he knew how.

"You're not sleeping," he said bluntly to her cold profile as she sat staring out at the garden from what seemed to have become her spot on the back patio.

She did not answer, but a slight shift in her posture told him she had heard him.

His mother had liked to sit here too, just where Loríen now was, where she could see the roses creeping up to the old fountain. "Why not?" He had decided he would be as stubborn as he had to.

Another shift, and she closed her eyes for a moment as if to conceal some inner pain, but she did not speak. As fond as he was of her voice, it was yet another source of frustration that he so rarely heard her use it. Yuffie had said something similar to him, once. Perhaps he deserved this.

Beside the point. He crouched by her chair and peered up into her face from below, allowing her no escape. It took a moment, but finally she cracked and shook her head, averting her eyes.

One word only passed her lips, but it was enough: "Nightmares."

"Ah." He declined to inquire as to their content.

When he offered nothing further, she looked to him again. "You do not sleep much, either," she observed, matter-of-fact.

So she had noticed. Vincent felt his lips twisting in a small, bitter smile. "Nightmares."

She blew out a short breath in response to that and returned her gaze to the view of the roses.

For several moments they sat in something like a companionable silence.

He broke it, eventually. Stood and eased himself into the other chair. "How long can you go, before the lack of sleep becomes a problem?"

Maybe it was the businesslike tone, convincing her that he was asking for purely practical purposes, but for some reason she actually answered him. "I think I am coming to that point now. Eight days, nine perhaps." She sounded just as straightforward as he had, the ugly truth offered without varnish or any hint of self-pity. "Already I am not so certain I am seeing what I see."

Hallucinations. Always an excellent sign. "Would a sedative help, just for one night?"

A tiny scowl marred her brow. "Sedative… I do not know the word."

More proof that she did not speak the language as well as she seemed to. He searched his mind for the simplest way to clarify. "A sleep aid. A drug, usually, although we could use sleep materia."

"And…" She paused, as if trying to stop herself from caring enough to ask, but eventually she pressed on. "…what is materia?" This time it sounded as though it was not the word that was unfamiliar, but the whole idea.

Having failed to consider that things might have changed so much since her time, he now felt startled and more than a little foolish, fumbling to figure out how to encapsulate the entire concept of the planet's energy in a way that would make sense to someone who had no idea what he was talking about.

In the end, when it started to look like far too lengthy a narration lay ahead of him, he opted for minimalism. "Magic." Imprecise enough to make him cringe, but it would have to do for now.

"There would still be dreams." It was not a question, but a confirmation uttered with bleak surety.

"Yes," he replied, regretting that it was the truth.

She seemed to give it some real thought for a moment, but eventually she shook her head. "Tomorrow, perhaps."

Dreams so terrible she would rather push beyond her body's limit than sleep? He could understand. When she looked over at him with tired, dark-shadowed eyes, he saw for the first time a very real fear eating at her, but it was not fear of him.

He nodded but said nothing. There was nothing to say. He was about to stand up and go back inside when she broke the silence unexpectedly.

"Tifa told me…" She paused as if uncertain she really wanted to say whatever it was, but when she went on she sounded perfectly in control. "…you died for the sake of the woman you loved. And that she destroyed herself, body and mind, trying to save you."

Even now, it hurt. Even now. Especially hearing it put to him so baldly.

Vincent was aware of her watching him, awaiting his answer. He stared at the surface of the marble-topped patio table. "That is true." When she said nothing more, he forced himself to meet her eyes. She seemed to be asking him to understand something she could not say.

After a moment, he felt enlightenment dawn. "And what did you do to yourself, when he died?"

It wasn't a question he really expected her to answer, and she didn't. But from the set of her mouth, he believed she was acknowledging that he had landed the point.

He considered the possibilities for a moment before realizing that he could really have no idea what she had been through, what she had put herself through. He knew too little about her in general, a situation he hoped would come to be remedied over time, if they were given enough of it. For the time being, he had no idea what to say to her.

In any case, he had already said almost all of what he had come out here to say. He pushed himself to his feet. "I'll be going into town in a little while. About an hour, I think. Errands." He did not want to have to parade the fact that she was technically his prisoner and would have to go wherever he did whether she liked it or not, but he was pretty sure she got the point on her own.

She was no longer looking at him, instead watching whatever it was in the garden that she found able to hold her interest. She did nod, though, black hair shifting on her shoulders.

Vincent went back into the house, replaying the conversation in his mind. He was heading for the room where he stored his guns when he heard a car approaching up the long gravel drive. He was not expecting anyone. It was not a small car, either, from the sound of the engine. In fact, hazarding a guess, he would have said it was a large luxury sedan.

He continued on to his gun locker; but instead of spending the next hour or so taking stock of what needed to be repaired, replaced, or upgraded as he had planned, he armed himself and headed back to the foyer. Ultima handgun frame, gale short barrel, fitted with a power booster and s adjuster γ. Custom bullets. At point blank range, the weapon would leave nothing more than a pair of smoking stumps where a man had been. Or it could serve as a highly effective warning.

He heard two of the car doors open and close immediately after the engine turned off, then a third a moment later. Three pairs of footsteps crunched up the gravel toward the door. Three distinct heartbeats were audible, waiting on the doorstep, after the bell rang.

With the gun in his right hand, concealed effectively behind his thigh, he opened the door left side forward to see what unexpected annoyance the afternoon had decided to provide.

It took a very great effort not to groan. Instead, he narrowed his eyes in what he knew was a particularly menacing way and waited, refusing to offer any word of greeting. On his doorstep stood perhaps the three least welcome – living – figures his imagination could have conjured up.

Rufus Shinra smiled coldly when Vincent said nothing. "Not a very warm host, are you, Mr. Valentine. Aren't you going to invite me in?"

* * *

In spite of young Shinra's massively inflated self-confidence, the next handful of moments were tense ones. Vincent made certain of that.

Reno tried to break the ice with a few ill-judged cracks about Vincent's silence and bad fashion sense – both more notable even than Rude's. The bald Turk sent several warning glares in his partner's direction; but the redhead either didn't notice or didn't care because he continued to forge ahead through the escalating ill feelings as if the four of them were the best of friends simply pretending to hate each other for laughs.

Eventually, communication of some kind occurred despite the stone wall Vincent managed to maintain for a good five minutes.

"I've been speaking with our mutual friends in the WRO," Rufus said breezily when he was not invited in, asked his business, or told to go away. "I understand you made an… unusual discovery at one of the company's old facilities. A unique astonishing relic of an era long past, as Tseng so poetically put it." He smiled, richly. "I have come to meet this honored guest, if you please."

The answer came rumbling out even before Vincent had known he was going to say anything: _"No."_

Rufus blinked in surprise, but quickly recomposed himself. His arrogant smirk almost demanded to be removed forcibly.

"C'mon, man," Reno drawled. "We've been driving for hours. At least invite us in for a drink." He pushed forward, past his employer, as though he thought he could simply let himself in.

_Click._

The gun was satisfyingly loud as Vincent cocked it, still held low at his side though its presence had now been announced. Reno stopped his forward advance. The four of them stood looking at one another in silence for a long time.

"Are you really going to shoot me, Valentine?" Rufus said eventually, his tone low and soothing and full of so much shit.

"There are plenty of reasons why I ought to."

Another silence. Rufus was measuring him, calculating odds. Finally he shook his head. "But you won't. There are plenty of reasons for that, too."

The man was, unfortunately, right. There was really no way Vincent could kill the three of them, on his doorstep, provoked simply by their wish to come inside for a chat with his guest. And if he turned them away, it would only delay the inevitable. At some point, whether Vincent liked it or not, Rufus would meet the woman and get whatever it was out of the encounter that he had come for. Or try to. Better it should happen here, where Vincent could keep an eye on him. As much as he disliked the prospect, he didn't have much choice but to let them in.

He did not say anything for such a long time that Rufus apparently decided the moment had come to press his case. "I only want to meet her, Mr. Valentine. And to offer my sincerest apologies for the trauma she suffered under my father's orders. Surely you can understand that? Trying to atone for the sins of the father?" His smile was nasty.

Refusing to be baited, Vincent ignored the jab. He simply brought the gun up where they could see it as he re-set the firing mechanism, then he stood aside. "Come in, then. But I should warn you, she's even less interested in visitors than I am."

Rufus ran his fingers through his pale blonde forelocks in a gesture of cool dismissal before accepting the forced invitation. Reno and Rude followed behind him. The former despot appraised the entry hall for a moment, the intelligent cruel eyes taking in every detail. Vincent knew a cut would be coming any moment, but he didn't care.

"What a fine home your father had, Mr. Valentine," he finally said, the tone so patronizing he might have been speaking to a five-year-old. "A bit old-fashioned for my taste, but he was a traditionalist." Mocking him for keeping to the original, out-of-date furnishings. As if Vincent cared for such things as _fashion_.

"He could afford to be," Vincent replied flatly.

Rufus smiled at the implied new-money insult.

The Valentines had been wealthy and important generations before Rufus's grandfather had been born into his poor working-class family and spent his lifetime struggling to build something like a legacy to leave behind for his son. Rufus's father had envied and hated the Valentines with such intensity that even a rookie Turk as politically obtuse as young Vincent could see the real reason why he was continually given such brutally awful assignments. It had amused President Shinra to force a snotty, superior Valentine to get his hands so dirty. And at the time that had suited Vincent just fine, even knowing that he was being used and punished for the sake of his family name. Because that was exactly why he had joined – to punish his father.

"I regret I never had the chance to visit, when he was still alive," Rufus went on smoothly. "But our fathers never were on the best terms."

Vincent chose not to shrink from delivering the line he had been led to. "He died before you were born."

Rufus feigned surprise. Poorly. "Oh, dear. That's right. It's so difficult to remember _you're_ my father's age." The laugh he tacked on made Vincent want to punch him in the mouth. With the armored claw, if only he was wearing it. "That Hojo was a nasty piece of business, wasn't he?"

Maybe sensing that things were about to get ugly, Reno piped up unexpectedly. "Hey, Valentine, what about that drink? And don't try to hide the good stuff."

As far as tension-breakers go, it was a bad attempt, but Vincent allowed himself to be amused rather than angry. Trust Reno to be the one to bring alcohol into a given situation. He was about to tell the loud redhead to help himself to the bar and even show him where it was, but then he heard the glass doors open and close behind him.

She came in quietly, and stopped once she saw the small crowd gathered in the foyer, so the others did not at first notice her arrival. It was Reno – ever vigilant, constantly searching his surroundings for threats, not as clueless as he wanted people to think he was – who spotted her first. His lips formed a soundless _oh_ as he took in her appearance.

"Hey, uh, Boss." He gestured with his chin. "Company."

Rude and young Rufus Shinra both looked where Reno directed. Vincent half-turned his body so he could see her while still keeping track of the three men. They were all visibly liking what they saw, each showing his approval in differing degrees. Vincent, taking note of the form-fitting black leather pants Loríen had on today, felt that Tifa was an absolute queen among women. He resolved to send along a necklace to go with the pearl earrings he had apparently bought her.

Loríen was looking at the gun still in his hand, and at the three visitors, and at the grim set of his brow. Her face showed no change in expression whatsoever, but he knew her well enough already to know that she was in the process of formulating conclusions. Mostly accurate ones, he guessed, even dealing with limited facts and only quick observation.

He was soon proven right.

Finished with her assessments, she made her way with brisk steps to the grand winding staircase. She had not moved with such purpose since her awakening, but he knew the others would not be aware of that. He was, very aware. She passed by the men who had come to see her without so much as acknowledging their presence and was halfway up the steps before anyone thought to stop her.

"Miss Raia?" Vincent had never heard Rufus sound so pleasant, or so respectful. The smile he managed to put on was passably genuine.

Still, when she stopped on the steps and turned – slowly, resentfully, as though annoyed by the petty demands being made of her, and with all the grace of a queen – to look Rufus up and down, her eyes pierced all the way through him, through all his many layers of deception. She was not impressed.

Vincent doubted very much that anyone had ever seen Rufus so truly, so completely. He doubted Rufus knew how to handle the full comprehension being aimed at him right now. And she was, simply, far too beautiful; receiving such a look from a woman like that could not have been easy.

Rufus actually stammered for a moment. _Stammered._ Rufus Shinra.

Vincent could not help it. He laughed.

Just three short grunts of amusement, really. His version of a dry chuckle, taken to the extreme. More than he had laughed since dying. Reno looked at him like he had grown a third arm.

The distraction proved enough to allow young Shinra to gather himself. Flicking his hair aside in that insufferable way of his also seemed to help calm him. He offered another smile. "Miss Raia, my name is Rufus Shinra. It is a pleasure to meet you." Miscalculating his own charm and the situation, he advanced up the staircase toward her, extending a friendly hand.

Loríen regarded her would-be sycophant with such coldness Vincent was simultaneously impressed, uneasy, and even a little sorry for Rufus. She raised a single sharp eyebrow, ignoring the offered hand. "Shinra?" With that one quietly-spoken word, she made it manifestly clear that she knew whom to blame for whatever suffering she had undergone at the mercy of the evil corporation that had held her prisoner.

Vincent, of course, knew that she remembered none of it, but that was beside the point. He was enjoying the performance.

Rufus's face was not visible from where Vincent stood, but one could imagine how he looked at the moment. He lowered his hand. "Yes, I am afraid it is true. It was my company that is to blame for your unfortunate experience. That is why I've come here today: to apologize." He paused, probably to smile. "I am truly sorry for the hardships you have endured and the lack of dignity accorded you while you were being held. If there is anything I can do for you, Miss Raia, it is my responsibility to accommodate your wishes and I would be only too delighted to do so."

He did not, Vincent noted with some amount of grudging respect, simply pass the blame for everything off on the former president. So he had _some_ of the qualities of a good leader.

But Loríen was not impressed. She listened to Rufus's prepared speech with the same cold dismissal throughout. Her expression loudly declared, though she was gracious enough not to voice the thought, _I have no use for you. No use at all._ "I see." She watched him a moment longer, frowned quite attractively, then looked past him to where Vincent stood still holding his gun. "Tell me, please, when it is time to leave."

They shared a glance, Vincent trying not to smile; then she turned and ascended the rest of the stairs, disappearing into the hallway beyond.

How she had managed to figure Rufus out so quickly and so accurately, Vincent could not say, but he admired her more than ever. And he was struggling not to laugh again at the affronted anger on smug Rufus Shinra's face as he came down to rejoin his bodyguards.

"Damn," Reno summed up, stretching the word into two incredulous syllables.

Rude nodded his agreement.

Vincent cocked his head. "I said she wouldn't be interested."

The red-haired Turk whistled. "You sure know how to understate it, man." He peered up the stairs as if trying to catch one more glimpse of her. "Shit. I'd hit that."

His partner cleared his throat conspicuously. "I doubt the feeling is mutual."

Another grunt of amusement, before Vincent could stop himself. Rufus and Reno both shot him glares, which he ignored. "I'll show you out now."

"Hey," Reno whined, "you promised us a drink."

"No. I didn't."

"And where is it you two are going?" Rufus inquired unexpectedly.

Vincent met the young billionaire's gaze without wavering. "Out."

Shinra smiled. "I hope you remember that this woman is dangerous, and that she is supposed to be under guard. You _do_ know how to do your job, don't you, Mr. Valentine? You have an inconsistent record where it comes to that, after all. Especially if there's a pretty face involved."

Far enough. Vincent had let this go far enough. Bypassing the gun entirely, he allowed his eyes to flash Galian's unsettling demonic yellow as he bent his head to shove his face within an inch of Shinra's.

"Careful, Rufus." Just the right amount of Galian's animal rumble in his voice. "You may have bought Reeve, but don't make the mistake of thinking you own me too. I don't need you, I sure as hell don't care about pissing you off, and I don't need any more cause than I already have to put a triple round in you where you stand. Remember that the next time you swagger onto my property looking for your ass to be kissed."

"You wanna back off, man," Reno advised lazily. Out of the corner of his eye, Vincent could see him fingering the button on his riot prod.

Rude flexed his gloved fists.

The two of them thinking they could stop him from doing whatever he wanted was amusing enough that Vincent actually smiled. It was not a reassuring smile. Despite Rufus's bluster and the cold glint in his pale eyes, Vincent could see that he was not nearly as sure of the situation as he wanted to appear – even though Vincent hadn't so much as touched him, yet. He had courage, though. In an insane sort of way.

"It's okay, Reno," Rufus finally said, his tone deceptively light. His eyes had not left Vincent's. "We're done here." Turning abruptly, he crossed the marble tiled floor in five long strides as his bodyguards hastened to catch up. He stopped at the door, half-glancing back over his shoulder. "You ought to be careful as well, _Vincent_. You may not need me, but you have friends who do."

On that charming note, he yanked the door open and stepped out into the golden autumn sunlight. Rude followed him without a second glance; but Reno paused in the doorway.

"Always a pleasure." He grinned, offering a mock salute. "Seeya 'round, Valentine."

As Vincent closed the door behind them, he listened to the three pairs of footsteps making their way back to the car.

"That went well, I think," he heard Reno laugh. "Cheer up, Boss."

"He can still hear us, you know," Rude informed him flatly. "Enhanced aural capabilities."

"Those are some mighty big words out of a mute."

Rufus sighed, followed by the sound of a car door opening. "Shut up, Reno."

"You got it, sir."

They drove off a moment later. Only after the sound of the car's engine had receded from earshot did Vincent finally ease his grip on the gun.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter Eight**_

**Even** though he hadn't necessarily expected her to, Vincent was still a little surprised when Loríen made no mention of the incident during the course of their time in town. It was almost as though it had never happened, or as though she had forgotten it completely. Almost. There was a wariness to her now that had been absent before, a sense that she was watching for danger even though she was still making some effort to appear unconcerned with her situation. He found the fact interesting enough to take note of.

Something subtle had changed for her.

This was different for him, as well – being out in public with an unnervingly and inhumanly attractive woman. She drew the attention of everyone they passed, everyone he had to speak to. He appreciated being able to feel invisible for a change, but this was not the way he would have chosen to go about it.

For her part, she seemed oblivious. Or at least she was not aware that _she_ was the one people were staring at with disbelief and some suspicion.

They stopped at the weapons shop first, where he picked up more bullets for Cerberus, and placed an order for a new rifle stock and another case of his custom-designed shotgun shells. The owner, a former SOLDIER named Mal, was one of the few people in Kalm who treated him something like a friend, and well he should. Vincent was one of his best and most reliable customers.

The big man informed Vincent happily that he had a new gun in and asked if he wanted to have a look. A glance in Loríen's direction, at the other end of the shop, confirmed that she would hardly care one way or another. At the moment she was glancing with apparent disinterest at a display case containing several swords. Vincent nodded consent to the proprietor, who disappeared momentarily into the back room. Upon closer observation, he could see that Loríen had her eye on one sword in particular. A long katana blade with a beautifully detailed ivory handle, complex knotted gold cording dangling from the ring in two long tassels.

He had a quick look at the other swords in the case, out of curiosity. The one she was looking at with feigned indifference was not the most ornate, not the flashiest or the most eye-catching. Nor was it the winner in terms of raw bad-ass appeal. He surmised that she actually had some sense of the quality of the weapons and knew what she was looking at.

The shop owner came out a moment later bearing a shiny burled wood case. Open, it revealed a weapon Vincent had to describe as a hand-cannon. Dark and ugly. Massive, powerful, far too much gun for anyone else likely to walk into this shop. It was obvious the man had been thinking of Vincent when he agreed to take shipment of the thing. And, unfortunately for Vincent, he was a loyal enough customer that he felt obligated to take it off the man's hands since no one else would. Even though he didn't have much use for it.

He handled the enormous gun for a while, for the shopkeeper's sake, while he considered how much gil he'd be willing to lay out. He had the thing half-disassembled and was examining the parts when a conversation on the other side of the room caught his interest.

"Do not touch me again." Said with more force than Vincent had yet heard from her, enough to set him on guard.

"Aw, don't be like that, honey. It was a compliment."

Putting his back to the counter, Vincent followed the sound of the voice over to where Loríen was still looking at swords and not at the two large young men attempting to draw her attention. There had been an unpleasant quality to the man's voice, a note that said he was willing to make trouble at the smallest perceived slight. The cruel, playful look in his eyes confirmed that.

"Stuck-up bitch," the second one snarled when she did not respond and did not look at either of them. "And here we are just being friendly. Don't you want to be friendly?" He reached for her while his friend sniggered.

It happened almost too quickly for Vincent to see, and was over long before even he could have made his way to the other side of the shop to help her. One instant the young man was making a forceful grab for her arm; the next he was being pressed face-first to the floorboards with his hand twisted agonizingly high behind his back while the other man howled, grabbing at his bloodied nose.

"Is this friendly enough?" She buried her knee deeper into the small of the man's back, twisting the arm higher and tightening her painful grip in his hair. There was something terrifying in her absolute composure, in the softness of her voice.

The poor man whimpered for mercy.

"I _said_: Do not touch me again. Yes?" She was back on her feet before he had answered her, before he had even had time to beg some more. Quite deliberately, she sighed and brushed imaginary dust from her clothing before coming over to stand with Vincent at the counter.

This was definitely going into the mental file of Things Reeve Never Needs To Know.

As much money as Vincent had spent and would continue to spend here, Mal's loyalties were predictably clear despite the question of who had shed first blood. "My deepest apologies, Miss, Mr. Valentine," the big former-SOLDIER offered sincerely. "We get their kind in here too often, I'm afraid, but I can't turn 'em away if they don't make trouble. This is the first time they've gotten handsy. I can promise you these two won't be welcome here again."

"It's all right," Vincent murmured, turning to face him. He was still seeing it in his mind, her blindingly fast neutralization of those two men and her lethal calm as she did it. It was wrong – too Turk-like for his comfort. He tapped the barrel of the still-disassembled gun on the countertop with a single metal-clad fingertip. "I'll take the Hurricane for seven hundred."

It was too low a price by at least three hundred gil, even for a long-time customer, but he had a feeling the man wouldn't argue the point. Not now.

"Excellent." Mal started putting the weapon back together. "Let me just get this packed up for you, sir. You be needing anything else today?"

Vincent shook his head. "This will do for now."

Loríen was standing beside him as composed and passive as ever as they waited for the shop owner to package Vincent's purchases. She said nothing, made no mention of the foolish young men or their brief altercation, did not appear in the least troubled by it. If he had not seen it himself, he might have been able to believe the whole thing had never happened. The two had already slunk out of the shop in disgrace, only three small drops of blood on the floor from the one man's broken nose bearing any testament to the event.

She met his appraising glance with one of her own and held it for a while, then made some complicated gesture with her hands and looked away. She did not explain herself, or ask where they were going next, or tell him to stop staring. She made no excuses for herself, in word or demeanor. Ever.

Vincent completed the transaction in near-silence, but Mal stopped them at the door with a final apology aimed at Loríen. She had not answered him before, but this time she inclined her head graciously before leaving. Vincent was deep in thought as he followed her out.

* * *

**Their **final stop was at the market to buy the makings for dinner. The baker insisted on giving Loríen a free pastry, which she tried in vain to refuse. When he would not take no for an answer, Loríen eventually had to thank him and accept the honey-smeared confection. Vincent, accustomed to being the one people were always trying to feed, was amused. She did not share his enjoyment of the situation. If anything, she seemed angry.

At the market, he invited her to buy whatever she liked if his choices were not to her satisfaction. She said nothing but she made another gesture with her hands, an ambiguous twisting of her fingers. He had seen her do this one enough times now that he was starting to draw some conclusions about what it might mean. He was guessing it was her version of a shrug.

"You can't expect me to believe you don't have an opinion on the subject," he tried, half-way between frustrated and entertained.

"It is all so heavy, your human food," she replied impassively. "My choosing will not change that."

He growled, frustration winning out. "You could have told me that a week ago. I would have made concessions."

One fine eyebrow arched at his rumbled response, but she said nothing.

After putting back nearly half of what he had already picked up and starting over with an emphasis on finding lighter, more natural fare, Vincent finally thought he had enough to make a decent dinner she might not hate. The thought that she had obviously disliked his cooking to date, when he had been making a very real effort to impress, was galling.

They were losing light already when they started home carrying their purchases, autumn cutting the days ever shorter. Thanks to Rufus Shinra, they had gotten a later start than he had wanted. Kalm was not a big city, but large enough that the walk took a while. They made it most of the way in silence before Vincent's curiosity finally won out.

"What did he say to you?" he asked her, earning a questioning return glance. "The man in the weapons shop. What was his supposed compliment?"

She pursed her lips, shaking her head. "It does not matter." There was something odd in her tone.

That, of course, only piqued his interest further. "Maybe not. Indulge me anyway." He directed her toward the narrow sloping backstreet that led up to one of the small gates through the wall to the outskirts.

She cast him a strange sideways look, her green eyes glinting. With amusement, maybe? Irritation? He could not tell, and the light was poor anyway. "He said…" She cleared her throat delicately, then shook her head again. "Something opprobrious regarding your appearance, and ventured that I could not possibly have come in with you. And he touched me in a way a man ought not to touch a woman without her permission." She frowned as she said it, passing absolute judgment.

He found himself smiling, intrigued that she was unwilling to share an insult that had been aimed at him. "I see."

"This is amusing to you?"

He couldn't tell if she was genuinely annoyed or simply pretending, and he did not want to assume. Still, "You must admit, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. It almost wasn't fair." _He_ had no idea what he had been getting himself into, proposing to be her jailor. She had moved as fast as a mako-enhanced SOLDIER. Faster. With the skill of a trained killer. He knew his own abilities, knew what he was capable of; but he had no idea what he would be facing, if it came down to it.

Unaware of what he was thinking, Loríen shook her head again. This time, though, her lip twitched just a little in what might have been a suppressed smile. His heart lifted at the sight.

"Almost," she repeated. She seemed, after a moment, like she might say something else.

But because it had just been that kind of day, Vincent realized as they reached the middle of the cramped alley in near-darkness that they were not alone. Just as he was discovering this, shifting his packages to reach a hand back for Cerberus, several figures lumbered out of the shadows to block their path. He stopped where he was, several paces short of the obstruction. Beside him, Loríen went motionless as well, registering the situation in her own fashion.

"Well, now," one of the shadow-forms said happily. "I don't know which one's prettier: the smokin' hot bitch or the skinny-ass faggot. How the hell does _he_ get a girl like that?"

Several voices laughed nastily. Vincent remained silent, still trying to calculate the best way of getting out of this without a fight. It wasn't looking good. There were at least eight of them and they were already geared up for their idea of fun, no doubt pleased that the night was starting on such a promising note. He couldn't tell yet how far they would be willing to go, if they were all talk or if they weren't afraid of actual pain.

A second voice answered the first. "They're so pretty I say we see 'em _both_ with their clothes off."

Another round of laughter. Meaner this time, titillated and hungry for more, the thugs moving in closer. This was going nowhere good.

Vincent summoned his most intimidating, deep and deadly-flat tone. "You're blocking the road."

"_Oho_, pretty boy can sing," the first one proclaimed gleefully. "Sing again, baby." The others backed him up with taunts and catcalls.

For answer, Vincent pulled and cocked Cerberus, aiming straight at the ringleader's heart. "You crashed the wrong party. You don't even know how wrong. Fuck off before I blow a hole in the pavement through your ribcage."

There was a small silence, while the gang tried to figure him out. Then the leader laughed unpleasantly. There was a detectible wobble in his voice. "Dumbshit, you shoot me and you'll _both_ be dead before you get your scrawny arm back up for a second shot." He made some gesture, and suddenly the alley behind him reverberated with the sound of more than half a dozen guns being drawn and readied.

Loríen had not moved a hair. Nor, when Vincent listened, had her pulse accelerated noticeably. He smelled no fear on her. This was good. Maybe. As long as it didn't mean she would be reckless.

There were ways, of course, he could still end this without bloodshed. He could simply take Loríen and leave.

It was not in his nature to retreat.

Vincent smiled, his old Turk smile, designed to unnerve and intimidate. It had never failed to achieve the desired effect. He could only hope there was enough light in the dark alley for them to be able to see it. "Are you sure about that?"

He knew what he sounded like, what he looked like. The aura he projected. They really should have paid better attention before deciding to mess with him, but he knew very well that they hadn't looked at him at all. They had been distracted by Loríen. He could see it in their faces now, the realization that they had screwed up royally, that they had picked one scary motherfucker to piss off.

This had gone all wrong. What had seemed like easy entertainment from a couple of prettied-up rich kids had turned into a life-or-death standoff, and the risk wasn't really justifying the payoff any more. But they couldn't figure out how to back down.

"Either way," Vincent added, watching the leader steadily with his gun still trained on the young man's heart, "you'll still be dead."

A tense silence ensued, guns pointed every which way, Loríen motionless beside him waiting to see how this would play out. Finally, just when Vincent had grown certain there would be a firefight after all and was already mentally mapping ballistic trajectories, the gang leader made another gesture and his boys put their weapons away loudly.

"Get lost, then," the street thug sneered, spitting on the cobblestones. He and the others receded into the shadows they had come from, clearing the alley.

Vincent looked over at Loríen and nodded, and they moved forward together.

But the voice came to them out of the darkness one more time. "I see you around here again, asshole, you're dead."

Vincent shook his head, with another Turk smile.

"I don't think so."


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter Nine**_

**At** lunch, Loríen's exhaustion was showing more than ever. Her eyes appeared enormous in her pale face, sunken and dark-smudged and just a little desperate for respite. She seemed to be holding herself very carefully, too, as though she might fall apart if she let loose the mental strings keeping her in place. And she kept darting glances toward the house, or out into the garden. She had said she thought she was starting to see things.

The lack of sleep seemed to have eaten away some of her restraint, because she actually initiated a conversation once she had finished her fruit salad.

"That man yesterday," she said, startling him. "Shinra. He could not have been the one responsible for the widespread destruction Tifa described. The one to put me in that lab. Yes? He is not old enough."

He wondered where this was going. "No, you're right. His father ran the company before him, and _he_ was the one who authorized invasive scientific testing on living organisms."

She shot him a sharp, discerning glance. "On you as well."

"On many people. He was an unscrupulous man with far too much power." He watched her, waiting.

She nodded. Her eyes were now on her empty plate. "Why is it, then, you hate the son so intensely?"

What had prompted her to ask this? "Rufus Shinra is guilty of his own crimes against the planet. I can assure you he is not hated for his father's sake."

She flicked her eyes toward the house, then back to him. "He pays for your friend Reeve's organization, does he not? The, what is it, WRO?"

He was taken aback by her perspicacity. He wanted to ask how she knew that, but the answer was obviously that she had overheard the talk at headquarters while seeming to be unaware and had pieced it together since then. It spoke to a lifetime of wary mistrust, something with which he could identify all too well.

"That's right," he confirmed, trying to keep the judgment out of his voice. It didn't matter how he felt about it, the facts were the WRO was a necessary force for good and Reeve would never be able to fund the operation without Shinra's support. It didn't matter that he still didn't trust Rufus and hadn't yet ruled out some long-term ulterior motive for the former despot's sudden philanthropic turn.

"So," Loríen concluded flatly, "I am right back in the hands of those who would harm me and use me for their own ends?"

Vincent shook his head decisively. "No. I won't let that happen."

"He was right then, Rufus." Her tone was hard and difficult to make sense of, the look in her big, tired eyes just as complicated. "That you have a history of, what is it? – insubordination?"

He shook his head again. So she had not gone to her room, after all. He wouldn't have, either. But that meant it had mattered enough to her, and he chose to take that as a sign of progress. "If you heard that, then you also heard me say I don't work for Shinra anymore."

She pursed her lips.

"Reeve is my friend, and we frequently have needs that coincide, so I offer him my assistance on occasion. But I am not a salaried member of his organization, and I do not take orders from him or anyone else."

She smiled, a small sly smile devoid of mirth that told him she had noticed his failure to answer the question put to him. It was gone quickly. "Then what am I doing here, Vincent Valentine?"

He did not know her well enough to be sure where this was going, but it didn't look good. He refused to play along. "I thought you didn't care. That one prison was as good as another to you."

The look she gave him was nearly as cold as the one she had hit Rufus with yesterday. "I did not ask you to tell me what _I_ think."

It was a beautiful day, one of the finest yet this season. Really no setting for this kind of conversation. The discrepancy was jarring. He felt himself growing more stubborn in the face of her strangely combative mood. There were plenty of truths he could answer with, other than the one he really should not confess. He chose one.

"I've done a lot of terrible things in my life. When I worked for Shinra. I let terrible things be done. I can't, anymore." That was the core of it, whether she chose to believe him or not. "I don't know how much control Rufus really has over Reeve, and I hope I never have to find out. But I do know there is a very real possibility that neither of them is done with you, and I intend to make sure you don't suffer any more than you already have."

She studied his face, searching for the truth in his eyes. She did not look happy with what she saw. "You were right, before," she finally said. "I do not care." As miserable as if he had just informed her she had some terminal illness, she stood suddenly and disappeared into the house, leaving him alone on the patio with the remains of lunch.

Unquestionably, the most talkative and emotional he had ever seen her. Downright out of control, by comparison. Yesterday really must have upset her a great deal, some part of it or all. It would take him a while, many mental replays of the conversation, to figure out what had just happened.

He was pensive as he started to clear the meal. Then the doorbell rang.

By the time he reached the foyer, he had already decided who it had to be. He was still sorry to discover that he was right.

"Reeve." He sighed. "What are you doing here?"

It was probably a good thing his friend was used to his lack of social polish. Reeve simply smiled instead of taking offense at the bluntness of the question, letting himself in just as Reno had tried to the day before. "Just thought I'd check up on you and your guest. How have you both been managing?"

Vincent, willing to be a good host this time, led Reeve to the parlor and offered him a seat before trying to answer.

"How is she, by the way? Is she adapting all right?" Reeve asked before Vincent had said anything. In spite of the utter transparency of the reason for his visit, he sounded genuinely concerned.

Actually, Vincent hoped he was wrong to connect Reeve's turning up here today with Rufus Shinra's aborted reconnaissance mission. But he did not expect to be.

Vincent leaned against the mantel, folding his arms across his chest as he watched his visitor settle in. "She seems to be adapting as well as can be expected," he answered reluctantly. There was so much he wasn't going to say. "She's still depressed, of course. Not much has changed. Why are you really here?"

This time Reeve did seem a little surprised, but it quickly passed into his more familiar tired resignation. "Vincent, I'm concerned you might have the wrong idea about your role in this."

Snorting his amusement, Vincent pushed off from the mantel to step closer to the couch where Reeve was perched. "You mean President Shinra is concerned." He cut off Reeve's reply before he could make it. "What has your Turk determined about the Avadi? He has had a week now. Surely some progress has been made toward resolving this woman's situation."

"Where is she right now?" Reeve asked instead of addressing the question. The lines between his eyebrows had never been deeper.

Vincent was starting to get angry. He didn't like being angry. "In her room. We just finished having lunch. Sorry you missed it."

"Vincent–"

"Reeve."

They faced each other down, the only sound in the room the tick of the antique grandfather clock. It seemed to Vincent he had been having far too many of these moments lately. Reeve smelled nervous; he didn't like what he had been sent to say. He sighed and sank back into the sofa cushions. "Vincent, please. I am not the enemy."

"You just work for him."

"Damn it, Vincent!" Reeve had never, as far as Vincent was aware, used that kind of language before. "You seem to think I've been given orders to carry out some terrible plot, but you know I've stood up to orders like that before. What makes you think I would fold now? Do you really think I want to see anyone hurt?"

Noting that Reeve had not denied being sent here by Rufus in response to yesterday's confrontation or having received instructions from the former president, Vincent frowned and resumed his position against the mantel. "I don't think I'm comfortable with your definition of what constitutes a person."

The Commissioner sighed loudly, a sound of abject frustration. "Do you _always_ have to be so difficult? Can't you just let me say what I came to say? I _would _like an opportunity to answer some of your questions."

"Please." He folded his arms across his chest again.

Reeve watched him with suspicion, waiting for him to lash out once more. When no outburst was forthcoming, he drew a deep breath. "Since you asked, Tseng has determined much about the Avadi in the past week. From his research, he has concluded that they were essentially a peaceful race. That seems to be the major reason for their disappearance over time. When war came to them, not once but three key times in their history, they were not prepared and each time suffered great losses. Each defeat brought them lower, closer to extinction."

In spite of himself, Vincent was fascinated. Even though he believed what Reeve was saying – and _wanted_ to believe it, because it would mean she would no longer be considered a threat – it didn't fit with what he had observed in Loríen.

There was no denying that she knew how to take care of herself, that she had been trained to kill. When he was around her, he could not ignore a sense that she was always still weighing in her mind the relative benefits of shoving a knife between his shoulder blades against the pros of leaving him alive another handful of heartbeats and was never quite sold either way. He was unable to imagine how an army of her kind could possibly suffer a defeat, much less three major ones.

Reeve wasn't finished. "We've been trying to decipher your father's records, but he seems to have purposefully left them in an incomprehensible state. The recording you brought back was helpful, though. The technicians were able to clean up enough of it to learn that Miss Raia was discovered by your father, asleep and fully encased in mako, in the place he referred to as the Grotto of Chaos."

"Lucrecia's cavern." Breathing was suddenly harder than it had been a moment earlier.

A picture was coming to him, a sense of how it all fit together. Patterns upon patterns, circling back on themselves. The interconnectedness of all the pieces of his life… it was dizzying. There were more answers here to his own questions than he ever would have believed possible. But that would have to be a meditation for another time.

"Yes," Reeve confirmed. He leaned forward. "It was determined the mako had unique qualities worth further study. A sizeable chunk of the natural formation was brought back to the Shinra facility for examination, while she was left at the grotto for some time after the discovery. Eventually, when in the course of their research it was time to bring her out of the cave, they used the mako they had studied to keep her sleeping. That was why she was never awake, at any time in the process."

Vincent listened, forcing himself to breathe calmly. After a moment, he went over to the bar and poured two drinks. Reeve accepted his gratefully.

He waited for Reeve to continue, but the pause kept stretching longer as the Commissioner nursed his scotch with a contemplative look on his face. Instead of demanding more answers, Vincent thought about what he had already been told.

From what he had just heard, he could not imagine what legitimate reason Reeve might come up with to suggest it was necessary to keep Loríen under guard any longer. He also could not imagine where she would go, if that were the case. He did not believe she would be willing to stay here with him, given a choice. He couldn't blame her.

Finally, Reeve sighed again. "Now, Vincent, this is where I really need you to listen to me for a minute." He set his glass down on the side table, all business. "You're absolutely right: Rufus Shinra came to me last night, after what he called an 'unsatisfactory meeting at Valentine Manor'."

Vincent forced himself to wait patiently.

"He told me you had clearly been exceeding your mandate," Reeve went on carefully. "That you had been filling the woman's head with hateful propaganda, and that you were once more allowing your emotions to compromise your professionalism."

Anger surged up inside Vincent's chest. He set his glass down abruptly on the mantel and took a step forward, scowling, but Reeve stopped him.

"I know bullshit when I hear it, Vincent." He sounded so tired. "I told you, I need you to just listen."

Vincent backed off, interested against his will.

Reeve rubbed at the nape of his neck as though all the annoyances of the past two weeks were lodged there and he hoped he could simply scrub them off. "Rufus came here to see Miss Raia because of Tseng's report, which obviously I could not prevent leaking to Tseng's employer."

"Tseng's report?"

Reeve nodded. "He made an official report, detailing all of his findings from the resources I made available to him. The intent of the report, on the surface, was to assure me that in his professional opinion Miss Raia is not a danger to us. But included is also a lengthy account of all the supposed abilities of the Avadi."

Understanding dawned. Vincent felt himself nodding. "In short, a catalogue of her assets as an ally."

"Or as a weapon," Reeve confirmed with an answering nod. "But when Rufus came here and found her unwilling to accept his offer of friendship, he saw his hopes on that front disappearing. He came to me complaining of your failure to do your job properly, demanding that she be removed from your custody."

Vincent frowned. "If it has been officially decided she isn't dangerous, why should she be in anyone's custody at all?"

"Ah." Reeve shifted again and reached for his drink. "He put the squeeze on me there. He said it is too soon for me to be making a decision that could have such grave repercussions for the entire planet. Threatened to have me removed as Commissioner if I could not be trusted to act in the people's best interest. And he did it publicly enough that now, if I do not take more time with the investigation, I will appear as reckless as he wants me to."

"But why?" It didn't make any sense. If Rufus wanted her away from Vincent, away from the WRO, why insist that she remain under guard? Why not have her declared "safe" and snatch her up once she was on her own?

"Here I have only my gut instincts," Reeve replied slowly. He took another long swallow of scotch. "It is looking more like something happened at your father's lab, Vincent. Not only did he abandon the research, but he trashed his own records. I think Rufus wants those answers. He wants to know what your father found. He thinks Miss Raia is capable of much more than anyone knows, and he wants to find out what."

That sounded right. He thought it all over as he let Reeve finish.

"I think it is quite likely your father kept his own records," the Commissioner explained. "Something more personal than what we have in our possession. If he did, they would still be here, wouldn't they?"

Yes. Yes, he saw it now. "Rufus figured that if he demanded to have Loríen transferred back to headquarters, I would go along. Leaving the house unguarded. He could search the place for my father's diary, or whatever it is he hopes to find."

Reeve was nodding. "Exactly."

Vincent considered the situation. "What do you want me to do?" He already knew he wouldn't agree to anything that allowed Loríen near Shinra without his protection.

A very great tension went out of Reeve at the implied cooperation. "Officially, I cannot yet declare the investigation closed. She must remain under guard." He smiled. "Too bad Rufus did not make a convincing case for your inability to do the job."

"Too bad." Vincent was finally starting to feel somewhat relieved as well.

"Unofficially," Reeve went on, "between the two of us in a room I hope I can assume is free of surveillance equipment, I am saying I no longer consider Miss Raia a threat. In fact, I feel terrible about what has been done to her right under society's nose – not that she is the only one. I hope the day will come when I can offer her my apologies and she will believe that they are genuine."

Vincent grunted. He hoped that day would come, too.

"I don't think I really have to ask," Reeve continued, "but I'd like you to keep her here and watch over her until we can get under Rufus's plans. And if possible, it would be helpful if you could find this personal account he's looking for."

"What about the data you have at headquarters?" File upon file he had brought back from the lab, and WRO technicians had been laboring day and night to bring order to the chaos of it. "He will have access to everything you look at there."

Reeve threw back the last of the scotch and peered regretfully into the empty bottom of the glass. "We can only hope your father did enough damage, and that nothing we decipher will be of any use." He paused. "I have already spoken to Shelke about this. We took a walk in the jungle. Very secluded. No listening equipment."

"Good." He glanced out the window. They had been talking long enough that the light had changed.

"Vincent." Reeve sounded more serious than he had a moment ago. Vincent returned his attention to his friend's face and saw the worry lines there more pronounced than ever. "I'm afraid I meant what I said, before."

The former Turk raised an eyebrow, inviting Reeve to explain himself.

"You seem… attached to this woman in a way that has me worried." He put up a hand as though to forestall objection. "I'm saying this as your friend, not as Commissioner of the WRO."

As much as Vincent wanted to snort dismissively and tell Reeve he was being ridiculous, he knew his friend's concern was reasonable.

"I'm hearing the same account from everyone who has seen the two of you together," Reeve explained when Vincent said nothing to stop him. "How you have become overly protective, even for you. That you are completely enthralled, blindingly so. Tifa's spin on it was more positive, but the same essential message. She said not to tell Yuffie, but you haven't been this head over heels since Lucrecia, and maybe not even then. Any statement applying to you that starts with _'Don't tell Yuffie'_ has me raising my eyebrows from the get-go."

All true. Too true. And yet.

"Do you have a point?" He hadn't meant for it to come out quite so forbidding, but there was no help for it now. He did make some effort to take the edge off. "After everything that has happened, can't I be allowed a little happiness for myself?" He stopped himself just short of saying something _really _stupid, thanking whatever deity was listening that he had not slipped the fatal L-word even in his mind. He had _learned_ this lesson, and calling it the hard way would have been a laughable understatement.

Reeve was watching him carefully. "That's the thing, Vincent. I _do _think you deserve to be happy. I lose sleep at night wishing I knew how to help you be happy." He shook his head. "I don't think this woman is good for you. She's miserable herself – how can she bring you anything but more misery? I think you love too easily, and too hard. I think you're going down another dark road here, and I don't even want to imagine what happens when you get broken this time."

No one had ever said anything like that to him before, and he was not sure what to make of it. He could appreciate that it had been hard and probably frightening for Reeve, and that the gesture was meant as a kindly one. But the last person who had tried to tell him what to do with his personal life had been his father, and that had not ended well.

He tried very hard to keep the growl out of his tone. "Reeve, I appreciate your concern. It can't have been easy for you to say that." He pushed off from the mantel, walking to stand before the double glass doors looking out over the patio. He could see the table where they had taken lunch, where they had just fought inexplicably over a subject he still hadn't figured out.

"I'm hearing a whole lot of _'But you can take your advice and shove it up your ass,'_" Reeve said tiredly from the sofa. "And yes, since you ask, I _will_ take another scotch."

"_Hnh,"_ Vincent grunted with some amusement. In the interest of showing the proper friendly spirit, he did refill Reeve's glass before returning to his view of the garden.

He wondered how often his father had stood just here, looking out at Ayame where she always sat watching the robins and the roses. At the end, perhaps this was the only way he could bear to look at her – from a distance, where he could not see how badly the illness had wasted her body and stripped her former beauty. Perhaps that was why he could not bring himself to be at home when she finally died.

"I wouldn't put it like that," he finally answered. "But really, Reeve. Do any of us get to _decide_ anything, when it comes to women? We all must do as nature dictates. And anyway, I'm old enough to be your father." Not really, but close enough. "Don't you think it's just a little too far into the realm of the absurd for you to be giving me romantic advice?"

He heard the sofa creak and shift, then Reeve was standing beside him at the double glass doors. "No you're not, and don't pull that crap with me, Vincent. Being asleep for thirty years doesn't count as actually _living_ those years." He carried on over Vincent's incredulous snort. "By my reckoning, I'm still a good fifteen years older than you, so you show some respect to your elders."

"_Hmph_. Right."

Careful not to move too quickly, Reeve put a hand on Vincent's shoulder. A reaffirmation of the sincerity of his concern. "We may not get to choose where we lose our hearts," he said quietly, "but you can choose not to lose _yourself_, too, Vincent. Just be careful." He gave the shoulder a firm pressure before letting go and turning away. "I'm worried about you, that's all."

"I think we have other things to worry about," Vincent replied. He was getting tired of all of this. The intrigue, the politicking, the endless interpersonal dramas. It had been a trying couple of weeks from an introvert's perspective.

Reeve laughed unexpectedly, loud and deep and rich. "Oh, Vincent. You don't honestly think your friends ever _stop_ worrying about you, do you?"

He scowled as Reeve continued to laugh. He did not like the implication that he was some sort of child they all felt obligated to mind in shifts. He had been doing very well on his own, since Omega.

And he _was_ nearly sixty-three years old, no matter what Reeve thought.

"And now," Reeve was finally able to say when his laughter had subsided. "Stop glaring, it was friendly laughter," he interrupted himself. "And now, I should like to see Miss Raia, if I pass your rigorous security standards. I don't expect a welcome much warmer than the one she offered Rufus, but I _would_ like the opportunity to explain things to her before I go."

Vincent glanced down at the scotch in Reeve's hand, quirking an eyebrow. "You had better hope you get a warm enough welcome to be allowed to stay for dinner, because you're not driving anywhere any time soon."

"Oh dear." Reeve looked genuinely concerned for all of five seconds. "Maybe you really _are_ old enough to be my father. You're just as grumpy as he was, at any rate."


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter Ten**_

**Loríen** took the news well. Which was to say she really didn't seem to give a damn one way or another what Reeve had decided about her or what Rufus thought he could use her for. She was back to square one with the apathy level. Vincent felt like shaking her.

She didn't jerk Reeve around, at least. When he apologized, she accepted and assured him she understood his caution. When he told her what would happen now, she said she had no reason not to continue to cooperate. When he asked if she minded staying with Vincent indefinitely, for her own protection, she made that curious gesture like a shrug and said he had been very kind and that she had nowhere else to go anyway. None of her responses cost her anything, as she was not emotionally invested in what was happening, and she gave absolutely nothing of herself away. Simply answered succinctly and without rancor.

Reeve stayed for dinner. Wutaian honey-seared scallops this time, still with no word of approval from Loríen on the culinary front. Vincent made a point of asking if she liked it. She hardly gave him the attention she would have granted a stranger on the street as she allowed that it was not the worst thing he had made. War, as far as Vincent was concerned, had been declared. Reeve watched their interaction with that omnipresent furrow of concern between his eyebrows.

After the meal, as Vincent was showing Reeve to the door, the Commissioner's frown deepened. "She's not looking well."

"She hasn't slept since she got here."

Alarm was instantly all over his friend's face. "What? But it's been more than a week!"

"You _said_ she wasn't looking well." He almost laughed grimly at Reeve's mute horror. "Don't worry. She has agreed to take a sedative after tonight if she still can't sleep."

"I have to admit I am astounded," Reeve said after a small pause, "at how much information you seem to have gotten out of her in such a short time, when I couldn't even get her to tell me her name in more than five days."

Vincent finally did smile a little. "Don't be too hard on yourself. She was asleep for most of that."

"Still." Reeve shook his head in disbelief, unwilling to acknowledge the joke, not on this subject. "I may not like it, but you two communicate well with each other. Maybe you can get her to finally tell us who she is and what happened to her, why she was asleep in that grotto."

Already knowing a small part of the answer to that, Vincent suspected he would never pass it on unless she gave him express permission to do so. But Reeve did not need to hear that. "Maybe."

By the time Reeve was in his car pulling out of the gravel drive, Vincent felt the day had been entirely too long and he was glad he could call it done.

* * *

**Only**, not really done.

No sleep came to Vincent despite his actually trying for a change, which might have been a blessing in disguise with the kind of dreams he'd been having lately.

As he lay in bed not sleeping, he heard a door open on the other side of the house. Loríen's room. He expected she must be heading down to the kitchen for a glass of water or maybe a small bite to eat. An hour later, however, he still had not heard her return footfall on the stairs; and, listening, he did not hear any movement from the direction of the kitchen.

He threw the covers aside and got up to see how she was occupying her insomniac hours.

From the top of the staircase he could see that the parlor door was open and a light was on, just a single dim lamp. When he got down there and put his head inside the door, he discovered that Loríen was sitting in the deepest part of the sofa, cradled by the cushions with her head back so far she was staring up at the ceiling. She was wearing the pajamas Tifa had bought her, a black silk camisole and matching shorts, her shapely bare legs curled up on the seat under her body. And she was holding a half-empty glass of his father's finest whisky. The bottle sat unstoppered on the low table before her. She had been down here an hour already.

As he stood there taking in the tableau, she put the glass to her lips and drained it to the lees. The face she made afterward was not at all appreciative, but she leaned forward and poured herself another glass before resuming her head-back position. She was unused to intoxication, he could see.

He came silently into the room and sat beside her on the sofa. She did not move or acknowledge his presence.

"Strong stuff," he observed quietly. She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice. "You want to be careful or you'll get drunk." He didn't actually know if that was true. He could drink the whole bottle if he wanted to with no ill effects, compliments of Hojo – an unfortunate discovery he had made one night five years ago while trying desperately to get shit-faced. While he doubted she could do the same, maybe she could take more than the average human.

She did not open her eyes. "Do you imagine I did not know that before I started?"

Fair enough.

He got himself an empty glass and filled it to the halfway point. They sat together in silence for a long time, each of them occasionally taking a sip. She opened her eyes eventually to stare up at the ceiling as before.

"What is it _you_ see in your nightmares?"

The question did not catch him entirely off guard. Knowing that she was here getting drunk instead of sleeping because she was unwilling to face what was in her own mind, he had been considering the difference between dreams and nightmares. Wondering if, for some people, there really was no difference.

"My sins," he answered truthfully.

She seemed to accept that as an answer, for she nodded and closed her eyes again. "So do I."

He did not press her for more, even though he suspected the alcohol had probably temporarily suspended her unwillingness to talk. He had a feeling he might not have to, if he was patient. But she was quiet for such a long time he was starting to think she had fallen asleep after all, and he had no intention of waking her.

"I should not have sent him away," she whispered into the silence. Not asleep. Her voice was heavy with self-recrimination. "We could have had the length of his lifetime together, at least. I could have left it all behind, for a time. It seems so foolish now… caring that he was mortal." She stopped and drank again.

It took a moment for the meaning of her words to sink in. He stared at her. "You… are immortal?"

The alcohol made her answering nod somewhat exaggerated. "Such are my people. _Evlé'í_. We do not die." She laughed, horribly, the sound bordering on a sob.

He closed his eyes swiftly. He knew that particular anguish. Losing everything, but knowing you would go on forever no matter how unbearable it was. No matter how lonely. When he looked at her again, she had rotated her head on the sofa back so that she could see him.

"You look so much like Naoise." She pronounced it _Nee-sha_; strange name, but no stranger than any of the rest of this.

Fighting an urge to apologize for something that was not his fault, he instead returned her gaze. She looked directly at him so infrequently, he wanted to enjoy it while he could.

She blinked slowly, drunkenly. And reached out suddenly toward his face. He braced himself for a clumsy, misjudged impact, but when she touched him her hand was surprisingly gentle. "Just, _here_," she informed him, exploring the shape of his nose with delicate fingers.

It didn't hurt, but it was strange for her to be touching him there. Not exactly where one might expect or wish a pretty woman to make contact for the first time. He made no move to stop her, saw no reason to.

"This is different," she explained, perfectly serious, one finger on the tip of his nose. Her hand moved down just a hair, and he found she was touching his lips. A jolt like electricity rippled through his entire body. Her fingers played lightly over his mouth, almost like a kiss, brushing over the lower lip just hard enough to open his mouth a little. "And here, too." Whatever her touch was doing to _him_, she still sounded rather matter-of-fact.

He was having a hard time pretending not to be aroused. He would _not_ take advantage of her while she was drunk. He told himself that as many times as he had to, over and over. He would not. Hellmasker had other things to say on the subject, but he ignored that. It hadn't even been his style as a bed-hopping Turk.

Her feather-light touch traveled up his face, over his cheek, to the corner of his eye. He could feel her finger just tickling at his long lashes.

"The eyes, though…" she murmured, staring into his as if judging them. Judging _him_. "His eyes would change, you know. _Poly_… some word. I saw them red only once. He was in great pain." She looked at him frankly, appraising. It was a difficult look to weather without shifting uncomfortably. "I think that is why your eyes are red: you are always in pain."

Vincent blinked, swallowed hard. This was... not what he had expected.

Just as suddenly as the digital exploration had begun, it ended when she allowed her hand to drop back to her side. "The rest is the same." There was quite a lot of doom in the pronouncement for five such innocent words. Remembering the glass clutched in her other hand, she brought it to her lips and drank.

"Why…" He wasn't sure what to say, and he stopped to consider.

She was staring at him, waiting. He could feel the heat from her body, beside him on the sofa wearing very little and nothing that concealed her eminently desirable shape. His lip was still buzzing where her fingers had touched, remembering the feel of her. And it hadn't been a dream.

He drew a deep breath. "You've tortured yourself enough."

For a moment she said nothing; then she laughed again, that horrible tormented sound. "That may be," she allowed, "but that does not make it end."

Unfortunately, he knew exactly what she meant.

She drank more, with a somewhat desperate air as though she was not as inebriated as she had hoped to be. As she needed to be. He studied her carefully. She seemed pretty drunk from where he sat.

_Who are you?_ he wondered, not for the first time, as he looked at her. How did a woman so beautiful, so powerful, come to such a low?

"I am no one any longer," she said, and only then did he realize that he had spoken his question aloud. She shook her head. "I am nothing at all."

Immediately he thought how hugely untrue that was, but that was not the right thing to say. He wasn't sure what the right thing to say _was_, but not that. Instead, he allowed his curiosity a moment in the light. "Who _were_ you?"

She let her head fall back again onto the cushions, eyes closed. "It does not matter. A destroyer. That is who I was. Am. A curse to those who love me. _Loralíenasa Nuvalinas Níelor Raia_." The way she said it, in her current state, it seemed she had forgotten it would mean nothing to him, because there was tremendous significance in every strange word. "Who I am is why I had to send him away, and now I have lost that too."

It meant nothing to him, and yet it clearly meant so much to her.

"He had _evlé'í _blood in him, you see," she was still explaining tiredly. "We wished to marry, not live our lives in secret, but they would never have accepted a human. The legends said it was possible to… The cost of failure was high, but we thought if he went to the temple of _Vaian_, and asked…"

"Asked what?" he prompted, when she lapsed into miserable silence.

She sighed. "For his human blood to be purged."

He wasn't completely sure, but it sounded like she was saying she had tried for something like divine intervention just so she could marry the man of her choice. The arrogance of it was staggering, bordering on the insane. For one brief moment, he thought she might not be all that different from Rufus Shinra after all. But the moment passed and he felt in his gut that she would not have done it without cause. He just, somehow, knew her well enough to know that much.

In which case, the sentimentality of the gesture, the sheer tragic romance of taking such an awful risk with the life of the man she loved because she honestly believed she had to – it was completely at odds with the cold indifference of her now. Something had broken her, something more than his death. Vincent could see that now, as he looked at her. She had known all along that their insane gamble might not work and that the price of failure would be her lover's life. She had been prepared to deal with that. Something _else_ had made her snap, and she was hiding from it behind her guilt at sending a good man to his death.

_This_ was what she feared to face in her dreams.

"What happened?" he invited quietly. "What happened when he didn't come back?"

Her lips tightened against each other, her eyes squeezed shut. _"No."_

Vincent slipped an arm behind her shoulders and drew her close to his body. Not in a lover's embrace, but so her tears could fall against him as she wept for the first time since her awakening.

It was strange: he had imagined that she would be incapable of crying. She had seemed too poised, too removed. Too cold. And yet, now, she seemed as small and frail as a young girl weeping over her first lost kitten. Not that he meant to trivialize her suffering. Her pain was very real and so deep he knew he could never hope to sound the bottom of it. She was like a black chasm, a dizzying abyss, a well of sorrow without end and he knew that Reeve was right. This was a dark road he probably shouldn't walk.

The feel of her in his arms was so right, though. Her pain was real but so was she, a woman not an ideal, with shape and contour and an enticing softness to offset her severity. He felt like a jackass for thinking such thoughts while she was sobbing her soul out onto his shoulder, but he couldn't help it. He was rediscovering rather inconveniently that he was a man.

She cried for a long time, while he held her close and drank in the feel of her body. After a while – more than half an hour – her tears finally subsided. He realized a moment later that she had fallen asleep against him.

This was good. This was what she had needed. He put his whisky down, then carefully eased the glass out of her slack fingers. Her face was nuzzled against his neck, between his chin and collarbone, her silky hair tickling at his jaw. He could not remember the last time he had experienced anything so enjoyable, awake.

Reaching out carefully to avoid disturbing her sleep, he flicked off the single lamp on the side table, plunging the room into darkness. He was asleep in minutes.

* * *

The phone woke Vincent in the morning. At first he thought it was his alarm clock and he couldn't think why he would have set it to go off so early. When he came around enough to recognize the sound of the phone, he remembered where he was and why. He forced his eyes open, hoping to see a particular shape curled up on the sofa beside him still, but she was gone. The whisky was gone, too, put back where it belonged; and the glasses had been taken away, probably to the kitchen for cleaning.

It couldn't have been much past seven. He only knew one person who would call at this hour. He stretched long and hard, rubbed a hand over his eyes, and got up to answer the phone.

"Yes?" he rumbled into the receiver. He hadn't meant to sound quite that angry. Not quite.

"Heya, Vinnie," Yuffie chirped back at him, offensive at such an ungodly hour. "Did I wake you?"

Hadn't that been the idea? "What do you want, Yuffie?"

His voice wasn't coming out quite right. It never did, first thing in the morning. Thanks to the damage Hojo had done to his vocal cords, his voice was always a beast-like growl until he had poured enough fluids down his throat. The whisky last night probably wasn't helping him to sound any more human than usual, now.

"Gawd, you sound sexy."

He said nothing, pressing his free hand to his forehead. He was already getting a headache. Phone conversations with Yuffie almost always did this to him.

"Geez, don't talk my ear off," she giggled at him. "Anyways, if you'll let me get a word in edgewise –" She paused dramatically. "What was that? Oh, how have I been lately? It's good of you to ask. You're so thoughtful, Vincent."

"For God's sake, Yuffie –"

"All right, all right." She giggled again. He wished she would stop. "I'm totally awesome, by the way. But you probably knew that already, because I'm me, and that's why you didn't ask."

"Yuffie –"

"Yeah, yeah. Why I'm calling. It's like this: you're having a party."

No. Oh, no. No, no, _no_. "You're mistaken, Yuffie. I am not having a party."

"The hell you aren't. This _is_ happening, Mr. Broodmaster. Just see if you can stop it."

_Click_.

She had hung up on him. She had hung up on him after calling him at seven in the morning to…

Shit. No. It was his birthday on Friday.

He searched his memory for Yuffie's number and called her back as fast as he could, something that would make him cringe later when he thought about it. It went straight to voicemail. He left what he thought was an appropriately threatening message, then dialed Tifa.

He was already talking before she had a chance to say hello. "Tifa, have you –"

"Vincent?" She sighed over the line. "Yuffie just called, didn't she?"

This wasn't sounding good.

"Yes, she did."

Tifa sighed again. "Vincent, I'm _so sorry_. I didn't mean for this happen, I swear. I would never, ever…" She trailed off miserably.

Vincent pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting back the headache, and carried the phone over to the couch where he could take the bitter news more comfortably. "I think you'd better tell me what's going on, from the beginning."


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter Eleven**_

**As** it happened, it really _was_ all Tifa's fault. The slip had been entirely unintentional, but that didn't change anything.

Vincent was feeling unusually misogynistic as he dragged himself to the kitchen for some coffee. If only women didn't have some innate need to _gossip_, this wouldn't be happening.

Why did Tifa have to mention, while on the phone with Shera, not only that Vincent had a new flame but also that she was terribly sheltered and needed more human contact than she was getting? Why did she have to choose to put their "relationship" in such terms? And why did Yuffie have to be "honing her ninja skills" by listening in on the conversation at the time? Why was Yuffie still so hung up on him that it mattered to her what he was doing and who he was with?

And why, why in God's name did his birthday have to be _this week_, giving Yuffie the perfect excuse to weasel in for a look at this mysterious new woman?

The group was all for it, of course. They thought it was great fun to see Vincent squirm at parties, and there hadn't been one in quite a while now. And when Cid heard about Vincent's "hot new chippy" – as Yuffie put it – he had become the loudest proponent of the whole party idea. Said there was no way in sweet fuck he was going to miss this, and how does that dickless old vampire get himself a hot chippy anyway?

Ah, Cid.

Tifa had tried to put a stop to it. He felt he might be able to forgive her eventually, since she had made an effort. She explained the situation to Cloud, trying to make him see what a mistake it was, hoping that if he told the others to stop they would listen to him. But, in typically clueless Cloud fashion, he had said he didn't see what the big deal was and that Tifa shouldn't worry so much about other people's problems. She even tried appealing to Reeve, but he had been too busy to take her calls. By the time she was able to get through to him, the wheels were all turning and it was too late.

No matter what Vincent had to say on the subject, people would be showing up on his doorstep at seven o'clock on Friday, and a party would be had.

And last night had ended so pleasantly, too. It would have been nice to be able to just carry that memory around with him for a while. Loríen asleep against him, the feel of her body, the sweet exotic scent of her –

His thoughts were brought up short as he entered the kitchen and saw Loríen sitting at the island calmly drinking coffee over a small plate of sliced fruit. She had put on the black silk robe that went with her pajamas, but she had not closed it and her excellent legs were still entirely visible.

The image… It was so like a scene he had been accustomed to in his more profligate days, the classic Morning After. In spite of his black mood, he felt a stirring of arousal at the implication.

She couldn't have gotten any more than five hours of sleep, but she looked better than she had. Still tired, but minus the insane edge of exhaustion. She spared him no more than a quick glance before looking back down at her plate and gesturing wordlessly with one hand in the direction of the coffee pot, indicating that she had made enough for him too. Only then did it register: she had made coffee. She had figured out how to work the machine to do it. He was impressed. More impressed after he took his first tentative sip; it wasn't even bad. He made himself some toast, then joined her sitting at the island.

"Sleep well?" he tried after a few more mouthfuls of the blessedly strong hot beverage. His voice was still morning rough, but it was getting better.

She made that vague gesture with her hands. "I slept."

That was all she said for a while, but it looked like she wasn't finished so he let her take her time. "I want to apologize, Vincent."

He still enjoyed the way his name sounded leaving her lips.

"Last night, I was inappropriate." She peered up at him through her hair, a mannerism curiously like his own. "I believe I took some liberties with you while intoxicated. I believe, also, I may have said things I would rather not have shared. On the whole, I gave a false sense of intimacy that I regret."

He strove to assure her that she had done nothing she needed to regret, but she shook her head.

"No, Vincent. I…" She paused, gathered herself, took a deep breath. She was really serious about this. "You are not Naoise, however much you may look like him. You are so very not him. It is not fair of me to seek comfort from you as though you were. Not fair to any of the three of us."

That hurt. It had been unexpected, and it hurt, and women said the most awful things, and he wasn't a morning person anyway. Did she really look at him and see nothing more than an inadequate surrogate for a dead man? He could not be having these conversations, dealing with these situations, so soon after waking.

Instead of growling something back at her, he said nothing at all. He drank his coffee, ate his toast, and went upstairs for a long shower.

* * *

**While **spending the entire day ransacking his father's library, Vincent was able to process a lot of what he had found overwhelming lately. By sundown he felt much calmer, much more like himself.

It was absolutely true that he needed to get his game face on if he was going to have to deal with a scheming Rufus Shinra. This was not the time to be turning into an idiot teenage boy all over again. _Especially_ not if there was a woman involved. She needed him to be serious, here. She needed him to be Vincent Valentine, not another one of the lovesick puppies who had followed her around town begging to be allowed to throw his figurative jacket over the proverbial ditch for her. She needed him to do his damn job.

As far as this Yuffie thing was concerned… He could handle her. It. Loríen wouldn't die of people coming over for a few hours, and neither would he. Whatever Yuffie's intentions, he would manage. It would be obnoxious and tiring, and then it would be over. And hopefully, his friends would consider his social obligations fulfilled for the next few months.

Before it got to be too late, he gave his housekeeper a call and asked if she would mind coming in tomorrow instead of Saturday. The change to their longstanding arrangement took her by surprise, but she agreed delightedly when he explained why. He wished everyone would stop acting like he never got out.

That done, he thought with grim satisfaction that he was being far more mature about this than Yuffie expected him to be and got back to looking for the alleged diary.

He wasn't actually sure _what_ Yuffie expected of him, but he didn't think she had the right to expect anything at all. She was the one who had walked out. Yet, three months after it ended between them, there she had been right back in his life acting as if nothing at all had gone bad between them, as if they were all best AVALANCHE buddies again and he still needed to just get over his broody coffin-dwelling self.

That was just Yuffie. And it was a part of why he had been unable to resist her in the first place.

Deep inside a desk drawer that Vincent never touched, he found a small notebook wrapped up with leather cord tied shut. When he pried the ancient knot apart and opened the book, he saw a date at the top of the page in his father's bold flowing script, followed by several thick paragraphs.

Jackpot.

* * *

Tifa had the grace to appear sheepish as she stood on his doorstep waiting to be let in. Cloud stood behind her, just concentrating on juggling the many cases of alcohol they had brought. _Far_ too much alcohol for a dozen people, even if one of them was Cid. Vincent already had a bad feeling.

"You are the first to arrive," he told them, actually a little grateful that the reasonable ones would be here to mitigate the obnoxiousness of Yuffie's entrance when she made it.

"Great," Tifa replied, beaming. "Then I can be the first to say Happy Birthday."

Cloud grunted, his version of _hello_. "Where do you want me to put these?"

Vincent showed them into the big formal dining room, the largest open space on the ground floor, where he had rearranged the furniture so that everyone could gather and mingle comfortably. He very well could have made Yuffie worry about the setting for the party, since this was _her_ mess, but he was trying to be an adult about it. He directed Cloud to the table he had pushed up to the wall to function as a buffet serving area and helped him unload.

"It's really nice to see you again so soon," Tifa said while they were working. "How's your guest?"

He shrugged. "You can ask her that yourself, when she comes down."

The guilt made a reappearance. "I wasn't sure she would."

He was pretty sure Loríen planned to join the party, if only for a little while. He hadn't pressed her on the subject, but she had taken the news calmly and had not objected when he said his friends were interested in meeting her.

"Tifa's gotten herself all worked up about this whole thing," Cloud informed him breezily, ignoring his wife's clenched jaw when he talked about her as if she wasn't there. "She seems to think meeting strangers is going to kill this woman of yours."

Tifa put her hands on her hips. "I never said–"

"Cloud," Vincent interrupted. "We need to get something straight right now, before Loríen gets down here."

The blonde swordsman lifted both pale eyebrows. "Yeah? What's that?"

"She is not _my woman_, and I believe bad things will happen if she is treated as though she is."

Cloud and Tifa exchanged a glance.

"I'm serious, Cloud."

"Hm." The former SOLDIER frowned. "When aren't you serious?"

Vincent did not have the chance to respond to that, because at that moment the front door crashed open so loudly the sound echoed through the whole house.

"Hey, hey! Anyone here? Don't tell me you're hiding, you big baby. I brought balloons!"

He groaned. Tifa offered him a sympathetic glance and a pat on the arm. "We're here for you, Vincent."

"That's the problem," he replied dryly. "You're _all_ going to be here."

Yuffie came bounding into the dining room, all sunshine and mischief, looking exactly as she had the last time he had seen her and wearing what might as well have been the same scanty clothes. "You may commence enjoying yourselves: I have arrived!" she announced brightly.

Before anyone had a chance to say anything to that, a familiar red-haired figure slouched into the room behind her carrying a cake box. "Hey, kids. Where's the booze?"

Vincent felt his brow lowering.

"What is _he_ doing here?" Cloud jabbed a furious finger in the Turk's direction to punctuate his question.

The girl from Wutai danced over to wobble her own finger in their erstwhile leader's face. "Had to bring a date, didn't I? Lighten up!" She grinned. "It's Grandpa Vinnie's birthday! What are you, like ninety?"

Oh, God. Vincent was _so_ glad he had taken a fistful of painkillers half an hour ago.

"Where do you want this, sugar?" Reno drawled at Yuffie, proffering the cake.

"That goes in the freezer," Yuffie replied with a wink, delightedly directing her answer at Vincent. "I got you an ice cream cake." She couldn't have sounded more pleased with herself.

Reno ambled off toward the kitchen with the box. His voice drifted back to them lazily. "Is that because it's a cold stiff too?"

Yuffie was the only one who laughed, but Vincent was pretty sure he saw Cloud holding it in. Tifa shook her head reprovingly at the ninja girl. That, of course, only made Yuffie laugh harder. "C'mon, guys. It was _fun-ny_. You thought so too, didn't you?" She reached up to mock-punch Vincent under the chin as she said it.

He caught her fist in mid-air, earning two raised eyebrows and a saucy grin. "Yeesh, Vincent, save the party games for later."

"So where's the Ice Queen?" Reno asked as he came back into the room. He took up a position intimately close to Yuffie. Vincent did not care for that at all.

He was on the verge of snarling that it was none of Reno's business where Loríen was when the doorbell rang. Gratefully, he left his ex-girlfriend and her new toy behind, hoping she would have found something else to amuse herself by the time he came back. And did she honestly think bringing Reno as her date would make him jealous?

The door was hardly open a crack when Vincent was deafened by a booming voice roaring his name. Two massive arms – one of them made of metal – caught him up into a bone-cracking hug while his ears were still ringing.

"Ba–rret." He gasped for air. It was a distinctly unpleasant sensation, feeling so helpless and vulnerable. "Plea–"

"Dammit, you're killin' the birthday boy, ya big ox," a second voice yelled far too close to Vincent's ear.

Laughing heartily, Barret released his hold and Vincent dropped ungracefully to his feet. "Sorry 'bout that, Vincent."

"You can't kill a dead guy," Yuffie's voice piped behind him, appearing from nowhere as she had a habit of doing. "I've tried."

"It's _un_dead, isn't it?" Reno argued next to her.

This was a mistake. One massive mistake. When his vision stopped swimming, Vincent looked out over his doorstep and saw Barret, Elmyra, Cid, Shera, _and_ Nanaki all standing there. At least the arrivals would all be over soon, and then he could try to hide in a corner somewhere.

"Happy Birthday, Vincent," Shera offered with a shy smile. "I hope you like barbeque ribs, because that's all Cid would let me bring."

"Damn straight," the airship pilot affirmed with a brisk nod. "Man food. Puts hair on your chest. Where's this new broad of yours?"

Painkillers notwithstanding, Vincent's head was already throbbing. He grabbed the door and yanked it closed, shutting himself outside with all of his newly-arrived guests. "Listen. Guys."

"You shouldn't have done that, Vinnie," Yuffie sang out happily from inside the house, her voice muffled by the door.

"Yuffie!" Cid bellowed deafeningly, surging forward. It was a good thing Vincent did not have any neighbors. "If you lock us out here, I swear to God–"

A giggle sounded in response to the threat, followed by a click.

"Yuffie, dammit!"

Her voice receding into the distance, they all heard her say, "_Tee-faa_, Vincent went all cloak-y and disappeared. Looks like we're having this party without him."

Cid's comeback was amazingly swift. "Laugh your skinny ass off if you want to, brat, all the fuckin' food is out here with us!"

A moment later, the door was opened and Reno stood there in the doorframe with his violent shock of red hair, beckoning them in. "Someone mentioned food?"

"The hell is _he_ doing here?" Barret demanded truculently.

"Barret," gentle Elmyra implored in her soft voice, struggling with several containers of food.

"No shit," Cid agreed. "What the hell is _this_ punk doin' at the vampire's birthday 'digs?"

"Please, all of you," Vincent interrupted desperately. "I need to say something."

"Save the speech for cake-time," Cid growled. "I want a drink and a smoke and to get the hell offa your fuckin' doorstep."

Before Vincent could say anything more, Cid had swaggered past him into the house, pulling an apologetic-looking Shera behind him with an armful of tupperware.

Vincent closed his eyes, hoping to wake up and find that all of this was just an unusual nightmare.

No such luck.

Barret thumped him on the back, sending him forward a step. "Happy Birthday, Vince." He and Elmyra followed Cid in.

"Many happy returns, Vincent," Nanaki said to him, amusement evident in the cultured voice. The fiery tail swished playfully. "I believe there was something you wished to tell us?"

Vincent shook his head miserably. Of all his guests, Tifa the exception, Nanaki was the only one Vincent wasn't worried about doing or saying something ridiculous when Loríen made her appearance. "It's nothing," he grumbled. "Thanks for coming, Red."

* * *

**He **_thought_ things sounded a little too quiet. When Vincent stepped back into the house, Nanaki at his side, he discovered that he was right and that an awkward hush had fallen over the small crowd milling in the foyer. It did not take long to discern the cause: Loríen was coming down the stairs in a black silk evening gown. Hellmasker observed that she looked good enough to eat. Vincent didn't give half a damn that she was ridiculously overdressed for the occasion.

Even Cid seemed to have lost his bluster. He stared, just as intrigued as the others, as the Avadi woman made her slow way toward the group with the elegance of a silver-screen movie star.

Yuffie looked stunned, then lost, then angry, wistful, jealous, incredulous – angry again – a little of everything, furious. Finally, sad. That didn't make him feel so good. He reminded himself that _she_ had walked out on _him_, flittering out of his life just the way she had flittered into it after Cloud and Tifa's wedding. He had been the one who wanted their relationship to be more serious. She had no right to be heartbroken if he had moved on.

Loríen, for her part, accepted the silent attention with indifference. The only change to the flawlessly void mask came when she caught sight of Reno in the group and recognition flickered. One eyebrow shifted upward almost imperceptibly, and she cocked her head in Vincent's direction as if inviting an explanation.

He lifted his hands and did his best to imitate the shrug-like gesture she always made. That brought a tiny quirk to her lips.

"_Shee-yit,"_ Cid finally blurted, disturbing the silence. "Vince, how the hell–?"

It would be best, Vincent decided, if Cid was not allowed to finish that question. "This," he said, raising his voice loud enough to be heard, "is Loríen Raia. She has been asleep in a Shinra research facility for the last fifty years." That should kill the teasing. "She's staying here for the time being, until Reeve can help her settle more permanently."

"That's right," Reeve said from the doorway. Everyone turned to mark his sudden, un-looked-for arrival. Shelke was there beside him, also unanticipated. "You are looking much better, Miss Raia," he told her paternally.

Vincent was relieved. He had been worried Reeve might send that awful robot in his place tonight, as though things weren't bad enough without putting Yuffie, Cid, _and_ Cait Sith in the same room together.

"Thank you, Mr. Tuesti," Loríen murmured graciously, inclining her head in his direction.

All eyes returned to her at the sound of her soft, accented voice. Reno sighed longingly. She descended the rest of the way and moved, without pause, toward the dining room – where the party was _supposed_ to be taking place.

"What about some music, huh Yuffie?" Tifa suggested, breaking the spell. She grabbed the ninja's arm and dragged her off, complaining, to see what they might be able to do about getting some background noise going.

"Damn, man," Cloud summed up, shaking his spiky head.

"Uh-huh," Barret agreed.

"I was trying to tell you," Vincent said austerely, actually enjoying himself a little now, "we are not a couple." Now that they had seen her, they would be more inclined to believe it.

Reno brayed his amusement at that. "You all thought Valentine was – Ha! Not with that dame."

Cid grunted. "No shit. Ain't no way Vlad here gets a woman like _that_."

"I think he could," his wife asserted, sounding more than a little put out. Vincent could hardly blame her, the way the men were acting.

"I appreciate that, Shera," he said with a polite nod.

"I'm going to set out these ribs." She glared at Cid as she said it.

"Yeah, whatever." Her husband's distracted response was not earning him any points.

Elmyra sniffed. She had been quite the handsome woman in the blossom of her youth and was clearly unused to being marginalized like this. "I'll go with you," she huffed, and together the two women stormed out with the food.

A strange snuffling wheezing sound caught Vincent's attention as he watched the women go. Tracing it to its source, he discovered that it was Nanaki. Laughing.

He smiled.

"Are you unwell?" Shelke asked the animal, her deceptively young-looking brow furrowed in concern.

Vincent felt his smile widening.

Cid glowered at the majestic creature. "Naw, the asshole's just got a hairball."

Shelke did not appear convinced and continued to watch Nanaki with some anxiety.

"He's laughing," Reeve explained, chuckling himself. "Our friends seem to be acting like idiots."

"Watch it, punk," the airship pilot threatened without any force. "Just 'cause you're some kinda bigwig these days don't mean I'm afraid to kick your smug ass. And why the hell you ain't man enough to want a piece of that–"

Just then music blared painfully through the house speakers, briefly forcing all of them to cover their ears in desperation.

"Yuffie!" Cloud yelled. "Too loud!"

The volume soon achieved a more reasonable level of deafening, and people were able to uncover their ears.

"I don't know 'bout you suckas," Barret announced, "but I'm hungry." And without further explanation he followed the food into the dining room.

Vincent noticed then that Reno had already sloped off in pursuit of Loríen.

"Me too," Cloud agreed. "Those crates were heavy."

"Crates?" Cid echoed hopefully. "That mean you brought booze?"

Cloud grinned. "You know it."

"Good man." The blonde pilot threw an arm around his friend's shoulders and led him off to find a drink.

Vincent and Reeve exchanged a look.

"Miss Raia is a charming young woman," Nanaki said, reminding them all again of his presence. "Although, I could not help but notice that she is not human."

Vincent sent him a questioning glance. Nanaki lifted his snout and sniffed at the air pointedly.

"You are correct," Reeve confirmed, "but that is a conversation for another time." He met Vincent's eyes. "Speaking of which, have you made any progress on that matter we discussed before?"

A brief nod was all he offered in response. There _was_ a spy in their midst, after all. Even if that spy was busy being eyeballs deep in lust with a woman not his date in another room.

Reeve returned the nod. "Good." A sudden smile lit his solemn brown eyes. "I almost forgot: Happy Birthday, Vincent."

As the last of them made their way to the boisterous-sounding dining room, Reeve added with a laugh, "You know, I take back nearly everything I said before. In light of things, I think you are behaving yourself with admirable restraint. You must not be as affected as I thought, after all."

Nanaki's snuffling laugh followed them in to the party.


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter Twelve**_

**For **a while, it wasn't actually that bad. Yuffie had brought balloons but not helium, so the things were all over the floor flying every which way any time someone moved – annoying as all hell, but sort of festive. No one had much of an opportunity to be obnoxious as long as they were eating, and luckily there was a lot of food. It had been long enough since they had all gathered together that everyone had stories and news to share in abundance, taking the focus away from Vincent. And away from Loríen.

Reno was like a dog on a scent, though. At first, Vincent was angry on Yuffie's behalf. How dare her date moon so shamelessly over another woman right in front of her? He soon realized, though, that she couldn't care less. So, apparently she had the kind of relationship with Reno where she could ask him as a friend to be her decoy. Interesting. When had that happened? And how?

Then Vincent concentrated on being annoyed for Loríen's sake, but that proved to be unnecessary as well. She was emerging as having a real gift for shutting men down. Not that Reno knew when to quit. That actually made it more amusing, when he kept coming back for more abuse.

At some point, though, they had all consumed so much alcohol that the rest of their better judgment went leaping out the window. When they ran out of news to trade, things got more interesting.

A very drunk airship pilot engaging in a loud and heated argument with Barret, over which one of them looked more ridiculous in a tuxedo, lent the evening a certain familiar charm. Why that particular issue was important enough to debate with such intensity, Vincent had no idea. Except that alcohol was an obvious factor. It reminded him of a similar occasion aboard the Highwind, where the two had actually come to blows over a disagreement on the best chocobo color.

Chocobos.

"Hey, Vincent, get your pale ass over here and settle this!" Cid ordered, disturbingly serious.

Arms folded across his chest, leaning against the wall beside the buffet table, Vincent stolidly refused to do any such thing. "Why me?" he asked from where he was, certain he would dislike the answer. Cid logic was never pretty, and he was _drunk_.

"'Cause you're as fuckin' neat and tidy as a gay." And he left it at that, as if it explained everything.

There was probably an insult implied in that, but Vincent was willing to put it down to the drinking and let it go.

But then there was Yuffie. "Plus he's prettier than any of us girls," she added helpfully in defense of Cid's reasoning. She was wobbling on her feet atop a chair as she said it, an entire bottle of rice wine clutched in her small fist. "Pretty Pretty Princess Vincent…"

"You're drunk, Yuffie." Cloud tried to pull her down off the chair without hurting her, but he had put away several beers already himself and his aim wasn't all that great any more. He succeeded only in jostling the chair enough to send Yuffie sprawling untidily on top of him, both of them crashing to the floor. They landed on one of the flightless balloons, which popped close enough to Yuffie's head to elicit a surprised shriek and a desperate failed attempt to regain her feet by clawing at Cloud's face.

This brought a burst of coarse laughter from Highwind, who always enjoyed seeing Yuffie humiliated. Reno seemed to think it was funny too, as he moved to help her up.

"Watch it, Strife." There was no force behind the threat whatsoever, only laughter. "Hands all over my girl. You're gonna make a man jealous."

Tifa literally _kicked_ Reno out of the way, no mercy shown. With a firm, maternal hand she righted first Yuffie and then her husband.

"_Your_ girl?" the unsteady ninja objected at Reno, jabbing a finger into his face. Her lank black hair was now dripping rice wine. "Waddya mean _your _girl? I'm–" She broke off, thought for a moment, then grinned mischievously. "Oh yeah. Your girl. We came together because we're _a couple_." This was followed by a stage wink and almost five solid minutes of maniacal giggling.

"Anyhow," Cid insisted, now ignoring Yuffie. "'Bout this situation–"

"You looked like a half-shaved chainsmoking monkey at your own weddin'," Barret asserted gruffly. "An' that's bein' _nice_."

Cid pounded a fist on the nearest wooden surface. "Yeah? That's _real_ painful comin' from a giant talkin' gorilla!" He jerked a thumb in Barret's direction. "Waddya say, Vince? Remember how he busted his seams at Cloud n' Tifa's wedding?"

The argument went on for an unconscionably long time. Just like the chocobos. While that was happening, Shera and Elmyra seemed to be displaying a somewhat unhealthy interest in mothering poor Shelke, who was in fact a twenty-two year old woman and not the growth-stunted adolescent she appeared to be. Modern medicine had only been able to do so much for her, thus far. Vincent was starting to wonder when he would have to step in and remind the two older women of the facts.

Yuffie continued chuckling over her own brilliance while Tifa tried to get a rice-wine-drenched Cloud to dance. As deadly as the man was with a blade in his hand, he didn't move as well when music was involved. Reno watched this for a while, then sauntered over to Loríen and asked if she wanted to give it a try. Her frigid _I think not_ would have been enough to put off a more intelligent man, but not the redheaded Turk, who told her he liked a little game of hard-to-get.

He probably would have been fine if he hadn't made a move to brush a lock of the Avadi woman's hair out of her face flirtatiously as he said it; but he did. Just as fast as the incident at the weapon shop, Reno was flat on his back wailing about a broken wrist.

The wrist, it turned out, actually _was _broken. Everyone seemed to find this terribly amusing; and no one was in too much of a hurry to get him a Restore.

Nanaki and Reeve, at least, were behaving themselves, having a head-to-head philosophical discussion in the corner – the kind where both parties solemnly believe that the alcohol has made them wiser.

Yuffie finally stopped finding herself endlessly amusing. She unwisely climbed back onto her chair to Make An Announcement.

"Lissen up," she slurred, pleased with herself. Vincent watched her warily. "I wanna prose a toast to the birthday… guy. Vissen. Nicest demon-man I ever met. And don't think that's just 'cause he's the only one." She drank healthily, only afterward remembering to add, "To Vissen!"

"Vincent!" the others echoed, raising their various drinks.

But Yuffie wasn't done yet. "Now it's cake time, bitches!"

Vincent, shaking his head, could not help but wonder why he had no say at all in any of this.

The crowd gathered around the table while Tifa went to get the key item, as Yuffie was clearly in no state to do it herself. Whatever dry amusement he had been feeling disappeared entirely when Tifa came out of the kitchen with Yuffie's ice cream cake and set it out on the table for all to see.

The cake was round, wrapped on the sides in a black chocolate ganache. Red icing was piped around the bottom edge, and the top was done in frozen white chocolate mousse, but otherwise the thing was nearly bare of decoration. Nearly.

It had, also, two mean-looking red frosting eyes beneath severe eyebrows, and a turned-down mouth sporting two wicked frosting fangs.

"Look, look!" Yuffie crowed delightedly. "It's you, Vince! I had them make a cake-you!" She nearly fell off the chair again, laughing.

They were all sort of stunned silent for a moment, perhaps amazed that Yuffie would dare make fun of Vincent so brazenly, especially in his own house. Then they were all laughing. Slapping his back, commenting on the uncanny likeness. Cloud asked what was on the inside. Yuffie stopped laughing long enough to tell him: red velvet cake and candy hearts ice cream. They all thought that was funny, too.

Vincent was not amused.

"Hey, how do we get Galian out here?" Yuffie asked, punching him in the arm. It didn't feel all that playful. "He's a lot more fun than you."

Vincent was past mortified and had absolutely no idea how to respond in a way that did not involve throwing everyone out of his house – especially Yuffie. Maybe dragging her back in just so he could throw her out again. The cake was monstrosity enough without her bringing up his demons at his own party, in front of what she thought was his new girlfriend.

Someone jammed a few candles in there – not enough to burn the place down since he _was_ ancient, as Yuffie cautioned – and Cid lit the small forest ablaze. They yell-sang that ridiculous birthday song, chafing Vincent's last few remaining nerves, and Cloud nearly pushed him headfirst into the fire as they all demanded that he make a wish.

He very deliberately did not look at Loríen. He had many wishes, of course. Many regrets, many hopes for the future.

_I wish…_

"Shit, Vince, yer fuckin' roof's about to go up. Just blow, dammit!"

Cid's demand was seconded by several less profane voices. Vincent took a deep breath and with a single exhalation put out all _thirty-three? What the hell…?_ candles dripping their colorful wax onto "his" cake-face. His friends applauded raucously.

"Waddya wish for, Vinnie?" Yuffie asked him conspiratorially, suddenly hanging off his neck.

"You know the rule," he told her, trying to find the humor. "If I tell, it won't come true." He removed her carefully and put her with some force into the nearest available chair.

"She's really pretty," the girl whispered, suddenly serious, as he took his hands away.

Vincent knew he could comfort her with an assertion that, while pretty, Loríen was not his girlfriend; but that would only be an evasion, at best. He decided to go with direct. Yuffie never did like to be coddled.

"Why did you come here tonight, Yuffie?"

She did not feed him some line about it being his birthday, for which he was grateful. "I don't know. It was pretty dumb of me, huh? I mean, it's not like you aren't allowed to move on. All I've ever wanted is for you to be happy. I just thought…" She squeezed her eyes shut tight as if she could make the whole thing go away. "I thought _I_ could do it. Some day."

"You did," he told her. "You made me happy, Yuffie. I've always been grateful for that."

"Even when you hated me?" Her smile was pitiful with self-loathing.

This was unexpected territory for the night, for her, but he proceeded bravely. "I never hated you."

Yuffie opened her mouth to make a response, but at that moment Tifa thrust a slice of cake on a plate under Vincent's unready nose. "Eat up, Birthday Boy."

The spell broken, Yuffie jumped up to secure her own piece yelling, "I want an eye! Gimme the eye!"

Vincent turned to see Barret bringing Loríen her piece with a strangely shy smile. He took a bite, carefully eating around the candy hearts Yuffie had thought would be such a laugh. The Avadi woman accepted the cake but did not, Vincent noticed, actually eat any of it. She was looking pretty glassy-eyed, as a matter of fact.

It didn't really surprise him when she stood abruptly while everyone was still eating. She set her own plate aside on her way to the door, moving with finality.

"Hold up, baby," Reno called, stopping her in her tracks. They were all looking at her now. "Where you going so early? We ain't even to the presents yet. This party's just getting started."

"Please, Miss Raia," Reeve seconded. "Stay."

It was not at Reno or even Reeve that she directed her answer. Her eyes were big and sad and exhausted as she settled them on Vincent's from across the room. "I tried, but I cannot." And she was gone.

After that, whatever Reno said, the party was over. At least for Vincent.

* * *

It came as no surprise when most of the guests ended up staying the night. Reno was expected on the clock in the morning, so he called himself a cab some time after midnight. Reeve and Shelke had arranged for rooms at the local inn, and so had Nanaki; but everyone else either crashed drunkenly on sofas or, if they were sober enough, asked to be pointed toward the spare bedrooms.

Still, despite a full house, when Vincent heard the cry in the middle of the night he knew exactly who it was.

On any other night, he probably would have left her alone. Respected her privacy. But tonight, leaving her to voice her nightmares aloud for anyone to hear would be the opposite of allowing her to maintain her privacy.

Vincent put aside the journal he had been reading and crept silently through the hallway toward Loríen's room.

She was asleep, and he hated to disturb that. But she was thrashing in her bed, crying words that he could still recognize as pleas despite the foreign language, clearly caught in the grip of just the sort of night terror she had feared to face. It wasn't like she was getting any real rest.

He wasn't sure what the polite protocol was for this kind of situation. All he had were his Turk instincts, which he probably should not have listened to. But he did. Moving to her bedside in the dark, he put one hand on her shoulder to wake her and the other over her mouth to quiet her fevered cries. If he had expected any particular response, it was not the one he got.

She was awake instantly – that part went according to plan. Maybe he had thought she would flail at him instinctively and he would evade her half-conscious blow easily while she finished waking up. What actually happened sent his heart up into his throat, racing in a sort of sick adrenaline rush.

She screamed.

Not a scream like the kind she had been half-voicing in her nightmare, nor the kind one might expect from a person startled awake. No, she screamed like a woman having boiling oil poured over her skin, like a woman being flayed alive, like a woman with full awareness being murdered slowly and brutally in the most painful way possible. She screamed into his hand, completely awake, eyes wide with terror, a cold sweat springing up on her skin; and she shrank back into the pillow as far as she could force herself, thrashing against both points of contact.

Not, _not_ a normal response.

For a moment he was frozen in shock. He had not heard a sound like that in a very long time, when he had done far more to cause it than waking a woman from a nightmare. He reacted quickly, though, pulling his hands away and taking several steps back despite the fact that his original plan had been to get her to be quiet.

The scream stopped when he backed off. Loríen struggled up into a sitting position. She was breathing quickly, erratically, as though she had just been shot or stabbed or in some other way tangibly injured. Her eyes were still wild with animal fear, an expression so completely unlike what he had come to see as normal for her it made him slightly queasy. The awful sound was still echoing inside his mind, calling up a hundred memories he would much rather have forgotten forever, bringing a cold sweat of his own to his brow.

"I'm sorry," he offered, at a loss and a little breathless himself with his heart hammering so hard and fast. "You… were having a nightmare." It would have been pleasant to be able to pretend that her reaction was connected to her dreams, but he knew it was not. "I didn't think you'd want the others to hear you."

He could hardly believe the others had not come barreling into the room by now, demanding to know who was being burned alive.

She seemed to realize how insanely out of control she looked and at the same time to be completely unable to do anything about it, which brought her visibly close to tears. For a long, uncomfortable moment she said nothing, simply trying to get her breathing back to normal. The sound of her panicked heartbeat seemed to fill the entire room.

Watching her struggle to regain control, hearing that scream in his head, Vincent suddenly realized he was looking at severe PTSD and wondered why he hadn't seen it before. Her extreme aversion to being touched and her disproportionate response when it did happen, her problem with eye contact, her strange moods, her eerie emotional detachment. Her jumpiness after encountering a man she perceived as a threat, the day she met Rufus Shinra. Her removal and self-isolation at the party. All of it… how had he not made the connection?

In her mind just now he had as good as attacked her in her own bed, in a place where he had promised her she would be safe. He wanted to shoot himself somewhere painful for doing something so stupid.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked quietly, when her breathing had slowed.

She shook her head. She looked a little more like herself now, her eyes no longer feral. Still haunted, though. Whatever her demons, they had not yet fully retreated to the shadows of her mind. Her brow was still shiny with terror-sweat. "No. I am sorry for screaming."

Vincent had absolutely no idea what to say to that. It seemed like he ought to just retreat in an attempt to minimize the damage here, but he did not feel he could in good conscience leave her in this state. He remembered again what Reeve had said, in the beginning, back at HQ: _The scans show she has suffered massive trauma over virtually every part of her body._ Unfortunately, offering reassurance was not one of his strong suits.

"Are you all right?" he tried. He felt like an idiot as he heard the words leaving his mouth. Of course she wasn't all right. She had PTSD and he had just triggered a flashback.

She stared at him with wide, incredulous eyes, clearly echoing his own thought in her mind. Then she laughed horribly.

He had to turn away from the look on her face as that terrible sound forced its way out of her. He had never, ever heard anyone sound so broken or so raw. Not even Sephiroth in his madness; not even Hojo, at the end. Not even himself.

"No." There was black amusement in her voice, and pain and despair and desperation. "I am not 'all right'. I should have warned you, Vincent. I did tell you, though, you should not have woken me."

He forced himself to face her again. It was like seeing a mirror-image of himself, after Meteor when he had gone his own way in a fog of grief and fury and self-hatred. There were things… things he had done in those days he wished he could go back and un-do. Things he had done to himself. Looking at Loríen, now, was like looking at that version of himself, and it hurt so much Vincent nearly couldn't bear to stay in the room.

"I am not well, you see," she went on in that same awful tone. "In my mind. That was why they took it all away. They thought it would be good for me to _rest_. They thought I might get better if I had no _responsibilities_." She shook her head, a dreadful little smile playing about her lips. "But there is no coming back, Vincent. Once you have crossed that line. There is no bridge back from insanity."

More than ever, he felt sick. His stomach was literally churning, looking at her, hearing her voice and the words coming out of her. Forced to feel what it all evoked in him. No matter how much he wanted to take care of her, to make sure she would be fine, he knew he had to get out of that room and away from the unguarded horror of the demons playing rampant in her mind right now.

As she said that last, though, the insane manic tension went out of her to be replaced by the familiar weary sorrow. She sagged back into the headboard. "I am sorry. Truly. I… do not mean to alarm you."

He had nothing to say.

She bit her lower lip, a strangely insecure gesture, yet far more normal than anything else that had happened since he had stepped into her room tonight. "I think I will try to sleep some more. Would… you stay with me a while?"

He knew the answer he wanted to give, but he couldn't do it. Not now. Not after… Just, no. Besides which, she needed comfort, but it wasn't him she needed it from.

"No pretending," he said, closer to a growl than he had intended. "Remember?"

He turned and left quickly, and did not stay to see the obvious hurt that flitted across her already drawn face.


	13. Chapter 13

Thirteen is my lucky number. Maybe that's why I feel this is an appropriate moment to pause and offer thanks to everyone who has been courageous enough to give this story a try up to this point. Or maybe it's just Thanksgiving sentimentality. Whatever. Thanks for reading, people.

_**Chapter Thirteen**_

"…**don't **care whachy'all say, that's one fuckin' crazy bitch." Even if Cid had tried to keep his voice down – a laughable notion – Vincent would still have caught the words as he came down the stairs to the kitchen, speaking as they did to a far too similar thought that he regretted was currently in his own mind. "Somethin' about her just _ain't right_."

Tifa's reasonable tones answered. "Now Cid, be fair–"

"Fair my ass. I don't know what all they did to her, but she's fucked up even harder than Vince. That don't mean I ain't heaps fond of her, 'specially after what she did to the clown last night." There was a pause, while he took a drink of something by the sound of it. "And I tell you what, if that damn Red ain't here in five minutes, he can walk his own hairy ass back to Cosmo Canyon."

"Fuck yourself," Barret put in charmingly. "I'm still eatin'."

"When the hell ain't you still eatin'?"

The sound of Yuffie's obnoxious laughter filled the whole house.

Vincent drew a deep breath and stepped into his own kitchen feeling rather like he was entering a war zone.

"Mornin', Vince," the airship pilot offered at a friendly volume of yell. "Sit yer ass down and pull up a glass of blood or whatever the hell it is you drink. Teef made breakfast."

Tifa was, as a matter of fact, working the stove with spatula in hand. On the counter sat several plates piled with far more eggs, pancakes, and sausage than any fifteen people could eat. Cid seemed to have finished and was leaning on the island with an unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth, a steaming mug at his elbow. The others were still working away at the mountains of food. Unsurprisingly, Loríen was not among them.

"You like your eggs over hard, right?" Tifa asked him, red-faced from the heat and happily in her element.

He nodded, even though he didn't really feel like eggs, and moved to get himself some coffee.

"Tifa was just fillin' us in," Cid said as Vincent was taking his first sip, "on the deal with your new toy."

Vincent swallowed the hot coffee far too quickly, searing his throat. _"Toy?"_

The grizzled blonde waved a hand in dismissal. "Whatever, don't get your panties in a wad, Vince. What I'm sayin' is Tifa told us all about her bein' the last of some weird ancient race and locked up in a Shinra lab and bein' a million fuckin' years old and all that shit."

Ah, the eloquence of Cid. Vincent put his mug down, waiting for the point.

"He's just trying to say we're all here for you, if you need any help," Tifa said, eyeing the pilot sternly.

"Even though she's crazier than you," Yuffie added happily. She was somehow not hung over, which seemed like an almost super-human feat after all the alcohol she had consumed last night. She also seemed to be in a far better mood. Perhaps the confirmation that Vincent and the new woman were not romantically involved, after all, had helped with that.

"You all hear that screamin' las' night?" Barret put to the group at large. "Now there's some nightmares I sure as hell don't want."

Sobered by that thought, each with terrible memories of his or her own, they were all silent for a moment.

Cloud was the first to find his voice again. "What's her story, anyway? How did _she_ end up with Shinra?"

Vincent shook his head. That was a story too complicated and too personal and too incomplete for him to think about summing it up for the team over eggs and coffee.

"Geez, Vince." Yuffie grinned at him. "I'd forgotten what a chatterbox you are in the morning. Slow down, will ya? You're kinda hard to follow."

"Speakin' of Morning Afters, what the hell was with bringin' that Turk asshole as your date last night?" Cid's gruff segue brought heat to Vincent's pale cheeks, but did nothing to phase the vibrant ninja.

Yuffie guffawed like a demented hyena. "What, you want a play-by-play? You old pervert."

"You're not actually _dating_ Reno." It was unclear whether Cloud was asking a question or informing her of The Law.

"And what if I am, huh?" She stuck her chin into Cloud's face, nearly knocking his plate onto the tile floor.

"Grow up, Yuffie." Cloud did not sound playful as he said it. "I'm not your father and you're not rebelling against _me_ with this. You're just being stupid."

"Oh yeah?" A brilliant retort, one of Yuffie's favorites.

"Yeah." Cloud could actually be pretty intense and scary in his own way sometimes. Times like now.

"Well I'm not, anyway," Yuffie finally told him defiantly, backing off. "Like it's any of your business."

Cloud continued to stare at her with that frightening intensity.

"Not any more," the girl amended, flipping her bangs out of her face, ignoring the stormy look this revelation provoked. "We kinda had a thing once, but that was a long time ago. Now we're just friends and he's not that bad and he helped stop those three leather-obsessed freak-shows you know and he had it pretty rough after Meteor and you really ought to cut him some freakin' slack, _Cloud_."

"It's all right, Yuffie," Shera put in soothingly before their former leader could say anything to that, one way or another. "Cloud's just concerned about you, that's all."

"Concerned my awesome ninja ass," Yuffie replied pertly. "I know a grudge when I see one."

"Well," Tifa sounded slightly apologetic, speaking over her shoulder while manning the stovetop, "he _did_ try to kill us, Yuffie. More than once."

"That was just business."

The airship pilot slammed a fist into his palm. "Spike's right on this one, brat. The punk's no good and he never will be. And you know it. If you're into bad boys, you could at least do one that ain't a goddamn mass murderer."

To that, Yuffie simply stuck out her tongue while making a rude gesture, then mumbled something about "Hotwind." "Anyways, I _said_ we're not a thing, so back the hell off."

Tifa brought Vincent his eggs and a couple of small sausages, shaking her head at the general stupidity. He had to agree. Although it _was_ nice that they seemed to have forgotten about him once more.

"Where the hell is Red?" Cid blustered, as if he literally could not go a full minute without something to swear about.

"We'll just stop by the inn on our way to the airship," Shera suggested reasonably.

"Fuck that," her husband shouted without any real rancor, waving his fists around again. "And ain't that alien broad gonna come down?"

"She's not an _alien_," Elmyra corrected him, sounding annoyed enough that it was clear they had already been through this several times before Vincent's arrival.

"Damn it, woman–"

"Watch it," Barret warned, teeth bared.

Cloud pounded a hand onto the island top, rattling plates and cups. "Can both of you just shut the hell up long enough to let a man finish breakfast?"

"Sorry 'bout that, Chief." Boldly unapologetic, Cid grinned and flipped Cloud the finger neatly while lighting his cigarette.

Vincent cleared his throat. "Cid, I've told you before, not in the house."

"And what's up _your_ ass?" the foul-mouthed pilot growled in his direction, the bright burning end of the cigarette wobbling between his teeth. "Is the pretty princess grumpy about turnin' a hundred years old?"

"Sixty-three, asshole."

All activity in the kitchen stopped dead for a moment as everyone stared at Vincent in complete and utter disbelief that they had just heard those words come out of his mouth. He had no idea why he had bothered to respond at all, much less in that way, except for feeling generally out of sorts lately. He _had_ to be unlike himself, if he was blurting things without thinking.

Last night had left him pretty shaken up, actually. Not just the incident, but the things he had read in his father's journal.

The silence was eventually broken by Cid's rough smoker's laugh. The sound seemed to free everyone from their paralysis. "Whatever, Vince. Old is old." But he did grind out the lit cigarette into the calloused palm of his hand and tuck it away behind his ear.

The banter continued more or less in the same manner until Nanaki showed up. Everyone but Barret and Tifa had finished eating by then, but the others lingered without complaint until they were done. As much as they filled the place with their noise and their enormous personalities, Vincent was actually a little sorry to think of them leaving so soon. It really _had_ been a while.

He was surprised when Cid hung back from the rest of the group as they all headed for the door. "Y'know, Vincent." For once, he was being completely serious. "Tifa was right. You got your hands full here; and if what she says is true, I wouldn't put it past old Rufus to have somethin' crazy in mind for this broad. You let us know if you need any kinda backup."

"Thank you, Cid. I will."

"You better," the pilot said at something more like his usual volume, "cause I'm gonna be seriously pee-oh-ed if I find out you've let another goddamn apocalypse creep up on us out of the blue."

Vincent gave a single dry chuckle. "Right."

He followed them out to the gravel drive, bidding all of them farewell in his own way, watching them disappear from view. Cid's voice floated back to him after he was gone from sight: "I mean it, Vince! _Seriously pee-oh-ed!_"

* * *

Vincent had only just finished removing the bugs Reno had spent the night planting throughout the house when Reeve and Shelke showed up. He suggested they talk outside anyway.

Obviously, there were things to discuss.

Even though he had been gearing himself up for this all morning, he still didn't feel especially like he wanted to talk about the things he had read in his father's journal. What he had witnessed in the night only made him more reticent. It was time, though. Time they all had some answers, time to make some decisions. And also, the thought of hanging onto this knowledge indefinitely and having to put himself through the conversation at some vague later date was even less palatable than Barret's potato salad. Best to get it over with.

He listened patiently to Reeve's briefing, and then to the things Shelke had to say, the bits and pieces she had collected that Reeve had not already shared. Mostly regarding the specifics of Tseng's report, the so-called "abilities" of the Avadi that Rufus Shinra was likely to have his eye on. It all fit with what he had learned in Grimoire's records. Telekinesis, psychic powers, extreme magic ability even without the aid of materia. Supposed immortality. Physical strength and healing capabilities surpassing that of a normal human – though by how much was an issue of pure speculation. Vincent had data on the subject more specific to Loríen's readings at the Gongaga lab.

The extensive battery of tests done by the Shinra revealed an intriguing explanation for the alleged strong magic ability of her kind: the presence, in her bloodstream, of a kind of naturally occurring organic mako fused with her cells. It was easy to see why a living Avadi would be a researcher's dream.

From the lab had come other findings as well. According to their tests, Loríen displayed an outright immunity to most forms of viral and bacterial disease, and strong resistance to all others, bolstered by an exceedingly effective immune system. This was the finding that had most excited Dr. Valentine, with his wife dying of some unknown and apparently incurable illness. It explained a lot to Vincent, several decades too late, about his father's prolonged absence from home during the time when they had needed him most.

It was bitter, the regret. The things he had said to his father, after Ayame died. The ruinous course he had set his life upon in a moment of teenaged anger at a man who had only been trying to–

"May I see the book?" Reeve asked him when Shelke finished her update.

Vincent shook his head. It was far too personal, some of what his father had revealed in his own private journal. It spoke too much of Vincent, and of Ayame, and of the pain they had all been struggling in their own ways to deny in those days. It spoke of a young son who hated his father, and could not understand; and of a husband's ultimately futile desperation to save the woman he loved.

It also spoke quite specifically of atrocities committed upon their helpless subject as they fought to find answers too fast, realizing only too late the monsters they had allowed themselves to become in their search for miracles.

"No," he answered flatly. "But I will tell you this: my father _did_ destroy or alter the records from the lab, so they would not be useful to the company." In remorse, when Ayame died despite his efforts and he was made to see how far past his own boundaries he had pushed himself.

"So it had appeared," Shelke commented.

He nodded once, and launched into his dreaded explanation of the events that had led to his father's rare outburst. "When their tests determined that Loríen showed immunity to every kind of disease they hit her with, they tried to use her DNA to synthesize a panacea. The problem was, they couldn't get any of their findings to apply to human tissue."

Shelke was nodding. "Dr. Reynolds has determined that there are enough vital differences between her physiology and that of a human that tissue would not be compatible on a molecular level."

Vincent disliked being interrupted, but he went on anyway with the intention of getting this out of the way. He had yet to come to the truly horrible part.

Reeve listened intently, brow creased.

"The company wasn't willing to admit defeat, even when all their best efforts continued to fail," Vincent made himself say. He could almost taste the unpleasantness in his mouth, of the words he was about to utter. "So they changed tactics: they harvested several hundred of her eggs and fertilized them with human DNA, hoping to create a hybrid that would retain her advanced immunity and allow them to translate that to human tissue."

"_Good God."_ Reeve looked almost as horrified as Vincent had felt, reading that.

Vincent drew another deep breath. It was nearly over. "Most of the eggs failed. But forty-nine survived. These were sent back to Midgar under heavy guard, to be researched thoroughly by the company's top genetic experts."

When he didn't say anything more for several minutes, Reeve shifted in his seat. "And what happened to the forty-nine?"

Not knowing the answer to that question was at the top of the list of things Vincent found so very appalling about the whole story. He shook his head. "I believe we can assume they reached the Shinra Building in Midgar, but beyond that I have absolutely no idea."

"And that can hardly be a good thing," the Commissioner thought aloud. His scowl was deeper than it had been since Loríen had first arrived at HQ. "So…" He trailed off, thinking. Took a moment to collect his scattered ideas. "It is unlikely Rufus knows about this, or we would have caught his personal goons on surveillance tearing apart the remains of the Shinra building looking for a lead."

A similar thought had already come to Vincent. "A project to produce a cure-all with the possible side effect of immortality?" He smiled mirthlessly. "Not the sort of thing a ruthless ageing tyrant would want his heir-apparent to know about. Wouldn't want the boy to realize he's nothing more than a backup plan."

"Which also means it didn't work," Reeve continued to puzzle out. "They never got their answers, or the old man would have been in far better health, not slowly dying of lung cancer."

"I didn't know that," Vincent murmured, without thinking.

True, they had never been anything like friends. But still, Shinra the Elder had been an undeniably important part of Vincent's young life. It was strange to think that–

He shook it off. "No," he added in agreement with Reeve's deduction. "I don't think the experiment was ultimately a success. That doesn't answer the question of what happened to the eggs."

"And whether or not they were allowed to fully mature," Shelke put in, rather unnecessarily and tactlessly stating what Reeve and Vincent had both implicitly known was a truth so ugly it did not need to be voiced.

If they _had_ been allowed to live and grow, and no medical application had ever been found, Vincent was damn sure Shinra had come up with a military one.

The Commissioner cleared his throat, uncomfortable and unhappy. "You say your father sabotaged the records you brought back to HQ?"

A single brisk nod. He already knew where Reeve was going. "Tseng should be unable to learn any of this from what you have on file, but I'd still recommend some sabotage of your own."

"He has already seen everything we have," Shelke pointed out.

Reeve gestured vaguely. "But if it's not there for him to come back to, to help him think, he should have a more difficult time putting the pieces together. And he obviously knows to suspect something like this already; hence Rufus's interest."

The girl shrugged, then fixed Vincent with that disturbingly wide-eyed stare. "Are you going to tell her?"

Vincent was surprised when Reeve answered first, on a note of near-outrage. "What possible good would come of _that_? No, absolutely not. And you are not to mention it to her either. Would _you_ want to know?"

The small woman seemed to give the matter real consideration for a moment before replying, "Yes. At least, I believe so." She thought about it a little longer. "But maybe her answer would be different."

"_Hmph,"_ Vincent grunted. Reeve had all but taken the words from his own lips.

There was a lot more he _wasn't_ going to tell them, possible relevance be damned. He didn't think it was anyone's business that apparently they _had_ woken her in that lab, to disastrous results. He did not need to narrate the string of entries about the chaos and the aftermath of those three ill-judged failures, detailing the damage done by a woman insane with terror and the disturbing things they had heard her say in her madness.

He was glad that his father recorded having destroyed the video evidence; and he could very well understand that the incidents had been so stressful Loríen could not recall them. They had immediately put her back under, each time. On the final occasion, she had actually fractured her own tibia trying to escape her restraints. Which was probably better than the first time, when she had badly injured two unwary lab-techs.

The entry following the second attempt was going to stay with Vincent, he knew.

"_There was some argument in the lab, but eventually it was decided that we should try again. Today's result was little better, though we were better prepared._

_ "After further observation, however, I am disposed to say more on A17V's situation. Though more than half of what she says is in another language, and the rest is what I would have to describe as crazed, it seems clear from what we __have__ been able to understand that she is suffering the after-effects of prolonged imprisonment and extensive torture. Our scans confirm evidence of full-body trauma. I would guess her apparent mental breakdown to be a result of that._

_ "Some of the things she has said are very difficult to hear. Many here are refusing to continue to study her if she is to be awake."_

Prolonged imprisonment. Extensive torture. These phrases meant certain things to Vincent's Turk brain – vivid things he could not shrug off. He knew. He had done them. He _knew_ what they did to a person. Whatever he wanted her to be, it was a fact he had to face that she would _never_ be "all right," ever again. She couldn't.

She was, as Tifa had so astutely observed weeks before, even more messed up than him.

The other thing he didn't want to share, for some reason, was the lab result determining Loríen's actual age and the length of time she had spent inside the crystallized mako. It was probably irrational of him, but he thought there was already enough raging hysteria over her _other-ness_ without throwing such prime fuel onto the blaze. He would keep that, and the more personal aspects of his father's journal, to himself. No one's business.

Reeve sighed, a sound fraught with weary suffering. "I suppose the thing to do now is to investigate, as quietly as we can."

"Where do you want me to start?"

But his friend shook his head. "What I want you to do is carry on with your business as usual. You know you're going to have Shinra following your every move for a while." It was the truth, but that didn't mean Vincent had to like it. "Keep them busy, if you can."

Vincent sighed.

Reeve ignored his forbidding scowl. "Leave this to me, if that's not asking too much. I think I do know a thing or two about information gathering and espionage."

Vincent didn't feel he had to respond to that.

"Perhaps not as much as a _Turk_," Reeve added sourly, "but I manage. You just keep Miss Raia safe, and draw Shinra's attention. I'll take care of the rest."

At the moment, trusting Reeve was just about the only thing Vincent could do.


	14. Chapter 14

_**Chapter Fourteen**_

**An** awkward, mostly silent week later, Vincent had work to do. He probably should have taken one of his friends up on the offer of help, or at the very least let Reeve know, but he decided against it. A psychiatrist he most definitely was not, but he thought getting out into the world would do Loríen more good at this point than being handed off to a new babysitter. Maybe it wasn't entirely safe, but he was pretty sure he could keep anything bad from happening.

He broke the news after making the last of his arrangements, the day before he had to leave. She had regressed back to watching the garden from her window seat, which only confirmed in his mind that bringing her along was the right thing to do.

"I have a job in Mideel for the next few days," he told her bluntly. Conversation between the two of them had gotten more difficult than ever, since the last time he had stood in her room. "We'll be leaving in the morning."

It seemed to take a moment for the fact that he had spoken to seep through the black curtain of her awareness. She drew a deep breath. "Mideel. Is it far?" An automated computer voice module would have conveyed more interest. She hadn't even bothered to look in his general direction.

He nodded, even though she could not see it. "A fair distance, yes."

Again, another struggle to think of something relevant to say. "What manner of job?" Already she had spoken more words in this conversation than she had all week put together.

He considered the best way to answer that. "Hunting," he finally offered.

The truth was, Mideel had been facing difficult times ever since the Lifestream had destabilized right under them. On top of the struggle to rebuild, even after Geostigma was no longer an issue and people had started to find new energy sources, Mideel was troubled by some of the most horribly mutated monsters on the face of the planet. Vincent had a standing contract with the town, to come through a few times a year and do a little housecleaning.

They never could pay him much, but that didn't matter. Money was not a concern for him. They needed help that he was able to give; he did not feel he had the right to refuse.

She nodded mechanically at his answer, staring out the window with glassy eyes.

So… that was as much as he was going to get? He could only hope the job would put some life back into her. "It'll be rough out there," he warned. "You should try to get some sleep tonight."

She nodded again, saying nothing more.

The thing that made this silence different was a sense he had that she was no longer trying to guard her secrets, more like she was keeping herself removed because she knew how dangerous she could be if she did not keep herself tightly reined.

He knew exactly how she felt.

* * *

**In **the morning, Loríen was up first. Vincent went to her room after his shower, thinking either to find her where he had last seen her in the window or else still abed if she had slept; but she was gone and the spare bag he had given her to use was sitting packed by the door. She wasn't in the kitchen either, although she had left him coffee and some toast, sitting neatly on the island waiting for him. Her own meal, whatever it had consisted of, was already cleared away. At least she hadn't forgotten how to function.

He loaded the car when he was done eating, fetching her bag from upstairs, packing the trunk full of a wide array of guns and curatives. The monsters in Mideel were capable of inflicting some awful status effects. Yuffie's latest visit had left him short of several materia he knew had been in his collection. Shield. Restore. Cover. His valuable mastered Ultima. All three Summons. At least she had left him a low-level Heal and a Fire and an Ice, as well as some support. And he did still have the Ribbon from Cloud, which he would let Loríen use.

When everything was ready and Vincent could think of no reason to delay leaving, he went looking for Loríen. He found her up in the music room, sitting at the piano staring at the keys with sullen disapproval, as though she had just caught them kicking puppies.

"Is it time?" she asked, surprising him.

He nodded though she was not looking his way. "The car is packed."

She gave the piano one last, strange, accusatory glance, then stood and passed him by.

* * *

**It **wasn't the silence. Vincent knew how to deal with that, and he didn't mind, even if it had already lasted four hours and seemed likely to last the remaining twelve of the drive to Mideel. It wasn't like he was a talker himself.

No. What aggravated him, as they passed mile-marker after mile-marker without a single word spoken, was the looming presence of all the undiscussed issues that lay between them – filling the car like a thick, toxic fog. And he was tired of it. And he didn't want to play games anymore.

"You might as well talk about what happened to you," he finally said bluntly with his eyes fixed on the view out the windshield. "It does help."

If he had laid money on the odds of her not responding, he would have made a packet. Five minutes of dull scenery rolled by.

He grunted his annoyance.

"Did you talk about it?" Loríen finally surprised him by saying, quite defiantly. He could tell from the direction of her voice that she too was looking forward and not at him. It was the most life he had heard in her since she had gone borderline insane at him in her room that night.

"In a way," he allowed. Sharing the memories involuntarily with Shelke had definitely been good for his mental health, in the long run. Even though he had never been made to articulate the things he found most painful about his past, just knowing that she knew somehow made it easier to put it behind him.

"What does _that_ mean?" she challenged.

He grimaced. "I was forced to relive it… with another person, in my mind. Telepathically, I suppose you would say." All right, he had to acknowledge it sounded ridiculous when he said it. But it had been very intense, and very real.

She took a long time responding to that, too. "And did it? Help?" There was less mutiny in her that time, more uncertainty.

"Yes."

Her answer was disconcertingly prompt. "But what makes you so certain I wish to be helped?"

He found he was gripping the steering wheel a little too tight and made himself ease up. Why did talking to her always have to be so difficult? And why could he not simply let it alone?

He knew the answer to that, actually.

"I don't care whether you want to be helped or not." He wished, after he said it, that he had sounded a little less harsh. "I know what that feels like, too. And I'm lucky the world didn't allow me to wallow alone in my misery any longer than it did."

She _hmphed_ at him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her fold her arms across her chest and turn her head to stare out her window.

He didn't care. He would bear her anger if that was what he had to do, but he had decided that her silence had already lasted long enough. Giving her more time to overcome her grief on her own obviously wasn't going to help at this point. She was too much like him, too damaged, and too inclined to slip slowly further into killing apathy and despair unless pulled from it forcibly.

"So talk," he commanded. "Our evidence suggests that you were once imprisoned and tortured." He ignored the sharp intake of her breath as he said that. "Tell me about it. What happened?"

"That is none of your _qotsuín_ business."

Vincent didn't know the word, but it was clear enough from the venomous way she spat it that it was the strongest expletive in her vocabulary.

He frowned. "Maybe not, but we're going to talk about it anyway."

She _was_ facing him now, and he could feel the anger pouring off of her. "Oh? And what shall you do to me if I refuse?"

Deciding that sparing her a glance now would only further incite her temper, he kept his eyes on the road. "I'll give Yuffie a call, and tell her that I am agreeing to her rather insistent offer to stay on at the house until she has taught you – as she put it – everything you need to know about being a modern woman."

Loríen, he could feel, was now quivering with fury and frustration and also with fear of having to say the things he wanted her to say. This was good. She was actually responding and that was good. "I do not think," she hissed dangerously, "you truly wish to do that."

He made himself shrug, both hands on the steering wheel. "No, I don't. But I will if I have to."

Her eyes were piercing into him viciously from where she sat. "You have a great deal of experience with _torture_, I believe? From your previous line of work? You are very good at it."

Vincent had to remind himself that he had known she would say that to him at some point, and that he had known what this conversation would be like before he had started it. And that it didn't matter. This wasn't about him or his feelings.

"I am also told that you and Yuffie were once involved… romantically," she thrust at him. "How did that end, Vincent? Have you _talked about it?_"

There was a malicious side to her and no mistake. It wasn't exactly like she had the face of an angel to belie it, either. Even when she wasn't being… _like this_, there was that disconcertingly sharp edge to her, a sense she might possibly be on the verge of shocking violence at any given moment. But he had provoked this; it was to be expected.

He stared hard at the mountains approaching on the horizon. "You can try to hurt me all you want. We're still going to talk about what you went through."

This time her silence was almost physically tangible.

One hand firmly on the wheel, he reached down with the other and pulled out his sleek black cell phone, flipping it open in one smooth motion. He started to dial.

"_Please."_ It was a whisper, low and desperate. Almost childlike. "Please. Vincent."

He kept dialing.

"I cannot."

Merciful for a moment, he paused short of pressing the final digit. "Yes you can."

She was shaking her head slowly. "No. Please. When he did not come back, I… I went looking for him, but what I found was…"

The hum of the engine was soothing, a constant low roar as the landscape floated by. Vincent curled his hand, folding the phone in half. "What happened to you, Loríen? It's time to stop holding onto the pain. Let it go." He glanced over and saw that her eyelids were squeezed shut as if to hold back tears, but her eyes were dry.

She shook her head again. "I cannot," she repeated. "It is all I have left."

Unfortunately, he knew exactly how that felt.

"Savor it all you like for the next few days," he finally decreed after a long moment of consideration. "By the time we're finished in Mideel, we _will_ talk about this again. Make your peace with that while you have the chance."

* * *

**Though **silent, the next few hours were anything but peaceful. In the seat next to his, the car's other occupant spent the remainder of the drive alternately seething or brooding or agonizing over Vincent's declaration.

Eventually, he decided it was enough.

"Talk about something else, then," he invited as though their last conversation had ended only a moment ago. They were, in fact, close to the southern shore by now. It had been dark for some time. "Something that doesn't matter."

She scowled without looking at him.

"What is your favorite color?" he prompted, amused at the stunning irrelevance of the question and the fact that he was asking it. "Did you have any pets as a child? What was your hometown like? Do you have siblings? Where did you learn how to take a man down like you did back at the weapons shop?"

"Go to hell."

He pursed his lips. So, she had spent some time listening to Cid. "What does it cost you to answer?"

"Silence."

"Please." He said it scornfully. "Now you're just being childish."

"I was entertaining a similar thought."

A part of him wanted to laugh. He kept his tone professional. "I am an only child. My mother died when I was sixteen. I left home after her death because I blamed my father and I wanted to punish him. I did it the best way I knew how, by joining the Company he insisted was a blight on the planet and taking the dirtiest job they offered. I never saw him again; he died when I was twenty-four, in a terrible lab accident." He took a deep breath. "I always wanted a dog when I was a kid, but was never allowed to have one. My favorite food is Wutaian spicy peanut chicken, my favorite composer is Jaeger – not that that means anything to you. I don't like movies, I prefer a good book. My favorite is _The Death and Life of Galen Tor_. And my favorite color is _not_ red, or black – it's green. Because I like the smell of wet grass."

More night-dark scenery floated by.

Loríen sighed quietly. "I never had a dog either."

They reached the coastal fly-speck town that was really nothing more than a collection of huts that had sprung up to service the ferry. There wasn't even an inn. The last ferry had gone out and come back more than an hour ago; but with nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, Vincent decided to find out if a little friendly persuasion could get them across the water anyway. The final price ended up being pretty steep, but not as high as he had been prepared to go.

It was nice, being able to stretch his legs for a bit on deck after such a long drive. There would still be well over an hour to go, once they made land again, so he enjoyed the respite while he could.

His companion, on the other hand, did not seem to be appreciating the experience at all. Upon coming to understand that they would be boarding a boat, she had retreated even further into herself. Now she stood gripping the rail with bloodless fingers, staring out over the darkness of the starlit water with wide eyes, face frozen in a horrible rictus of fear – like a death mask.

Vincent made a circuit of the deck in the brisk autumn night air, working the blood back into his limbs, before coming to stand beside her at the rail. Her heart was thumping hard, much too fast. He had seen fear of water, fear of boats before. This was something different.

"It's a short trip," he offered, hoping he sounded reassuring.

She worked hard to take in enough breath to speak. "Mideel… is on an island?"

He nodded, watching her with mounting curiosity.

Loríen swallowed, then swallowed again. "I see." The terror-sweat had made a reappearance on her pale forehead.

Even though he knew she wouldn't answer, he decided to try anyway. "Bad memories?"

Surprisingly, she did at least nod an affirmation. And then she opened her mouth though no words came out, as though she _wanted_ to speak but didn't know how. Eventually, she snapped her jaw shut and gripped the rail harder.

"You can't see the water from town," he told her. Maybe it would help, if she could pretend.

No answer to that, not that he expected one. He was feeling sort of awful about forcing her not just to face the world, as he had planned, but to relive her nightmares. _Not_ as planned. His hopes for this trip were quickly looking more and more grim. But he was not prepared to call it a defeat. Not yet.

For Vincent, three quarters of an hour was a short voyage and he had spoken truthfully; but for Loríen, it was a torturously long time. She was nearly hyperventilating by the time they docked and unloaded the car. Not that the island itself was any kind of haven for her. On the road again, she shrank as deep into the passenger-side seat as she could, with her eyes shut tight, and clutched at the side grip as if her life depended on it.

But she did not, he noted, wail and demand to go back. Credit where it was due.

It was just after ten o'clock when they finally pulled up outside the inn, and they had made good time. Even so, it had been a very long day.

Loríen had managed to calm herself somewhat in the last hour and a half, though she still looked fairly ill. As foolish as the reassurance had sounded to him at the time, it did seem to be helping that they were far enough away from the ocean that she could neither see it nor hear it, and the smell was negligible and largely eclipsed by the rank, busy stench of the jungle surrounding them.

Like the rest of Mideel, the inn was a shabby place not necessarily devoid of a certain primitive charm. Vincent would have preferred it if the décor featured a little less supposedly artistic bamboo. Also, the colors were much too bright for his liking. But he wasn't here on holiday, or to enjoy himself. And if the beds were unimpressive too, that never mattered to him either.

The desk clerk was in the back room watching TV when they came in. Vincent had to ring the bell five times before the old attendant finally heard.

His voice came shuffling out before he did, calling for them to give him a blasted minute. When he caught sight of Vincent, however, his demeanor changed dramatically.

"Mr. Valentine!" he beamed. "Been expecting you this week. Got your room all ready for ya."

Vincent cleared his throat, half-turning his head in Loríen's direction. She was paying no attention to either of them. "Thank you, Saul, but I'll be needing a room with two beds this time."

The grizzled old clerk finally noticed Loríen where she stood mostly concealed behind Vincent's cloak. A toothy, surprised grin broke across the sagging lines of his face. "Brought help, did ya? Pretty help, too." He leaned so far over the counter to get a better look at her that Vincent was afraid he wouldn't be able to stand up straight again without help. "And what's your name, missy?"

It took her a moment to register that she was being addressed, and by then old Saul was displaying signs of concern. She really didn't look well.

"It's Loríen," Vincent supplied for her when she failed to answer. "We've been on the road all day. Could we get a key, please?"

The clerk sprang back from the counter, all earnestness and apology. "Sure, sure. Didn't mean to make you stand here all blasted night. Just… let me…" He scanned the board where the keys all hung in carefully numbered slots, finally grabbing the one he wanted. "Here you go. Room 6." He shifted his attention to the prettier of his two guests. "You let me know if you need anything, all right?"

The room turned out to be exactly like the one Vincent usually used, except that there were two twin beds crammed into the same space instead of one double. It didn't matter, at least not to him.

Loríen surprised him by helping to unload the car without being asked. Methodical, mechanical, disinterested. Clearly doing it for the sake of having something to do. Saul came in while they were still hauling their stuff, to deliver the welcome basket the mayor always put together for Vincent's arrival. Energy bars and electrolyte drinks and other healthy snacks. Sort of tacky, but practical, and the gesture was a meaningful one coming from such a poor town. The clerk apologized for there not being enough for two, since they hadn't known–

"It's fine," Vincent cut him off as he seemed to be preparing for a long ramble. "Thank you."

The old man left them alone eventually, after repeatedly assuring Loríen that he was just down the hall if she needed anything, anything at all, while she was here. She curled into herself once he had gone, devoting all of her energy to _not_ panicking. Vincent decided to leave her to it, and took a shower in the cramped bathroom before trying to get some sleep.

He hadn't been understating things when he had told her it would be rough out there. He hoped she would be able to focus by morning.


	15. Chapter 15

_**Chapter Fifteen**_

**Vincent** knew he needed to stop it. He knew he needed to concentrate, especially since Loríen wasn't. It was more difficult than he had thought it would be, though, to keep his mind on the task at hand any time he caught sight of Loríen prowling the jungle beside him with a sword strapped to her back. She had chosen a wardrobe he could not complain of, and moved with a deadly elegance which said quite clearly that this kind of activity was not entirely new to her.

He had been embarrassingly nervous, giving her the weapon. The one he had seen her eyeing, that day in town; he had paid the shop owner handsomely to have it delivered before they left for Mideel. This morning, when he presented it to her, a part of him had wanted to impress her. But in fact, she had merely taken one look at the sword before tying it expertly at her back and walking past him out of their shared room. All as if to say, _I suppose it will do. Let's get this over with._

At least he was certain now that he had guessed right and she did know how to use the thing, after all.

She hadn't used it yet, though. The morning was surprisingly easy, and then they stopped for a quick lunch before heading into an afternoon quite light on monsters. He had been able to take care of all comers before they ever got close to her, and he wasn't even doing it on purpose. He actually _wanted_ to see what she could do.

In the waning afternoon, he got his wish.

He was just thinking to himself that the scarcity of monsters had to be a good sign, indication that maybe he could start coming down here less often. It looked like it was going to start raining soon, too, and he was considering calling it a day. He smelled a cache of head hunters nearby, and resolved to head in after investigating. They were pretty deep in the jungle, and it would take them a while to get back to town from where they were anyway. Definitely time to turn around, right after the head hunters.

They thrashed through some incredibly dense foliage as quietly as they could, Vincent trying to concentrate on how much he hated the wild instead of on the woman beside him. The smell of the monsters was getting stronger, and then he picked up on something else – the stink of death. He peered through the undergrowth.

What he saw was no fewer than seven head hunters fighting over the carcass of a very large chocobo. He motioned Loríen over to have a look with him. She knelt beside him and dutifully turned her eyes where he directed.

When he believed she understood the situation, even though she didn't give any sign that she did, he took careful aim and let off three rounds before the remaining four monsters noticed the source of the danger and surged toward their hiding place. Vincent took that as his cue to launch a more direct assault. Pushing to his feet, he advanced on the head hunters firing two more shots as he moved. The second round missed.

One of the ugly creatures made a break for Loríen's position, drawing its awful lips back in what Vincent recognized as preparation to spit.

He called a warning, but may as well have saved his voice; she was already out of the way, long before the toxic venom sailed by the spot where her head had been. He caught a flashing glimpse of her rolling out of the way, black hair flying, then she was on her feet again on the other side of the attacking head hunters.

Vincent put his armored boot into the one closest to him, sending it flying back onto its friends. Two more quick shots, and the whole stinking pile of them was twitching its last. He stepped out into the clearing.

Loríen looked back at him steadily, completely unruffled, sword still in place at her back.

He gave the area an inspection, but found no more monsters. From the look of things, the chocobo had not been dead long and the head hunters had been the first to come across the feast. Which meant that more scavengers would be along soon to take advantage of the unguarded bounty. Glancing up at the sky, gauging the remaining daylight, he weighed the decision to head back against staying here a little longer to take out whatever came by next.

A distinctive clicking and hissing sound from the surrounding foliage made the consideration temporarily moot. "More coming," he advised coolly, checking his ammo.

Loríen sighed and cocked her head to pick up the sound he had already detected with his superior hearing. He wondered idly how good hers was, how soon she would be able to hear what was for him fairly loud and obvious already. After literally only three seconds of attention, she oriented herself in the correct direction. He was impressed.

The first one came out of the undergrowth alone, allowing him to take it out easily with a single shot. Then the jungle seemed to be suddenly alive with an innumerable, teeming mass of hideous green head hunters and slime-coated crysaleses, all emerging at different points from the surrounding vegetation. For a moment it was just chaos, all giant clicking insect limbs and hissing and that horrible rotten smell the things always emanated. A second assessment told him there were only eleven of the giant bugs, but it was enough to keep him occupied for the next handful of minutes.

So occupied that he did not hear the malboro until it was directly behind him, slicing his back open with one of its tentacles.

A malboro? In Mideel?

It was huge, too, at least three times the height of a man with the girth of a spacious hut. He was certain he could blame the exposed Lifestream in the area for the other mutations he was able to observe as he rolled painfully out of the way. Like the razor-sharp barbs on the underside of its tentacles – the ones that had just set his back on fire with agony.

An angry head hunter made for his vulnerable position in the mud. He seized it by the face with his claw when it came within reach, pulling hard. It screamed, gurgling as it crawled away to die. While he was occupied, though, the malboro flailed at him again. He noticed in time to roll out of the way, but one of the barbs caught him in the side before he was clear.

Where was Loríen? Struggling to his feet, he dared a quick look and saw her staring at him in frozen horror. Specifically at the blood oozing from his torn abdomen, although it seemed like it wasn't really him she was seeing. In her eyes was a return of the animal madness from that night when he had woken her from her nightmares. Her weapon was still in place at her back, and she did not appear to have moved since the attack had begun.

He had no more time to spare on her, however. The malboro was sucking in air, preparing to unleash its devastating Bad Breath upon them. And there were still two more head hunters alive and seriously pissed, determined to be the ones to win the free chocobo dinner.

Without warning, a blast of hot wet air surged past him – straight into the malboro's wide open maw, where it erupted into roaring flames. Then Loríen was there, grim-faced and intent, slicing the screaming monster into neat quarters with two well-placed cuts from her blade.

It fell apart even before it knew it was dead.

Vincent dragged in several labored breaths. The wounds in his back and side, he was coming to realize, were poisoned. He turned to deal with the two remaining head hunters but found they were already dead by Loríen's sword.

Which just left Loríen.

Whatever the hell had just happened with her, he knew in his gut that he had uncorked a bottle he would rather have left sealed. The thought had already come to him – in the instant she had unleashed her magic – that he had not given her any attack materia. He made himself face her.

She was staring at her hands, at the blood there from the malboro and the head hunters, and her eyes now were far too dazed

"Loríen." She did not look up at the sound of his voice. "Are you all right?"

Her hands started to shake.

"Loríen." He said it louder this time, with some urgency. When she still didn't answer, he limped to her side and put a hand on her shoulder even though he knew the gesture would inspire a volatile response at best.

She jerked away from his touch. Her breath was coming too fast and was only getting faster. She looked again at the blood on her hands, and at the bloody wound in his side, and then at the carnage she had wrought. And then, without a word, she took off running into the dense greenery.

Swearing, Vincent sagged to his knees for a moment as he fumbled for the Heal materia. It wouldn't do either of them any good if he went chasing after her only to collapse from the poison. She was carrying the supply of hi-potions, but that was all right; his wounds would close on their own. He waited until he could feel the sick sluggishness receding from his limbs. Almost as though directly in replacement, a foul mood descended on him.

And then the rain came.

Quite a lot of _sotto voce_ swearing occurred before Vincent finally caught up with his escaped charge. Quite a lot of enduring wet vines in his face and getting his boots stuck in sucking mudholes and literally stumbling across the many carcasses the Avadi woman had left in her wake. At least it would appear she had not snapped so badly she couldn't still take care of herself. It was even somewhat interesting to note the several different kinds of death she was apparently capable of meting out – there were the standard sword-dealt wounds, of course, but also fire and lightning and ice and something that might have been a hippogriff that had exploded from the inside out.

Again he reminded himself that she did not have the appropriate materia on her to do this kind of damage. This was all her. Something Rufus Shinra could never be allowed to learn.

She was on her hands and knees in the slimy black mud when he found her again. A closer look revealed the proximity of a puddle of vomit. At the moment, she was fighting back a wave of dry heaves and she had definitely seen better, more attractive days. Her sword, lying discarded several paces away, was covered in blood and gore. So was she.

Vincent came up beside her without a sound and dropped into a crouch. His sudden appearance elicited a frightened gasp, her head wrenching itself upward. Her eyes were big and red-rimmed and almost feral.

"You are hurt." Her voice was shaking, but the dry heaving had stopped.

"I'll be fine," he tried to reassure her, even though something was very, _very_ wrong with her just now. "You saved us both, back there."

But she was not listening to him at all. "I killed them. They died because of _me_, and he made me watch. The screams, the _blood_…"

Which was very clearly the insanity talking.

Moving slowly, not wanting to startle her, he reached out with his gloved hand and rested it lightly on her shoulder. She flinched. "You're in shock. Come on; let's head back." The rain was coming down pretty hard now.

Suddenly she was the one gripping _his_ arm, her hold alarmingly firm. "You want to know what happened? You want to see what it is I see? _Have it, _then! I do not want it in my head any longer!"

At the same moment that Vincent tried to open his mouth to ask what the hell she was talking about, his world turned itself inside out. His present reality – the jungle, the rain, the woman beside him and the vice-like grip on his arm – was abruptly submerged beneath a series of images playing through his mind so _loudly_, for lack of a better description, that while they were going on he could not see or think anything else.

And he saw it all. How she walked into a carefully laid trap, looking for her Naoise when he did not come back. He saw the imprisonment, the torture. Months upon months she had lain rotting in a tiny cell beneath the earth, forced to watch while her enemy murdered one person important to her, then another and another. Enduring daily tortures so vile and ingenious and unspeakable that even Vincent's stomach lurched, seeing it all.

The man who had held her captive was one of her own kind, exacting revenge because she had dared to stop him from trying to erase humans from the face of the planet. Vincent watched as the man who hated her so entirely did things not even Vincent's Turk training had enabled him to imagine possible. It was all planned, all so meticulously planned. Her lover – not dead on his quest after all, but her enemy's prisoner and then his victim, while she was made to watch. Then her sister, and her sister's husband. Slaughtered, to torture Loríen. Day followed by bleak day with no hope of rescue, not even the comfort of death as her enemy healed her time and time again to inflict more pain. Smiling all the while.

One year. _One year,_ she lived and suffered like that before breaking. Until finally, one day, she had retreated so far into herself that she was no longer aware. No matter what he did to her – and he went far beyond the bounds of what a merciful god should allow – in an increasingly desperate effort to elicit some response. And when he found he couldn't hurt her any more, he killed her. Thoroughly.

Watching that final scene unfold in the space of a heartbeat, Vincent was reminded of his most horrible nights on the job for the company. The screams. The blood, the gore. More than an uneducated person would think possible from a single body. Only, she didn't die, quite.

And then her rescue came. Far, far too late.

She was broken. Understandably, but completely. And they brought her home, and they _made_ her heal, but they hadn't saved her. She had died a long time ago.

He saw how it was. How they tried to help her remember herself, how she only retreated further inward. They cared for her as if she was a simple-headed child, dressing her and feeding her and taking her for walks. Which only crushed all of them a little more every day because of the strong, vibrant, _living_ woman she had been, before – a leader. And he saw how, one day, she came to herself enough to recognize the broken pathetic excuse for a life she was being forced to live, and stole away when no one was looking to a place she knew of where she could use the potent natural magic to put herself into a dreamless sleep, forever. Escaping the nightmares and the hopelessness and the pain that wouldn't go away no matter how _healed_ she was supposed to be.

Everything, all condensed into an incredibly vivid moment inside his mind.

Then he blinked and she had withdrawn her hand from his arm and was staring into the mud, and he was breathing as hard as though one of his lungs had just collapsed. Words… were difficult for him at the best of times. He had none for this moment.

Hellmasker was screaming with glee, lovingly stroking his favorite of the horrific images Vincent had just been forced to receive. Death Gigas was enraged, demanding in his wordless brutish fashion that someone suffer for hurting the woman he considered his property. The Galian Beast was restless, made hungry by the brutality. And Vincent was… he was…

He was not interested in trying to figure out what his own reaction was or what it meant, especially not right now, so he struggled instead to push it down.

Loríen seemed to be listening to the sound of him breathing, maybe allowing it to soothe her. Because her voice was much calmer when she said, finally, "Forgive me." Her eyes were fixed firmly on the ground. She looked like she might be sick again. "I should not have… What I made you see, I wish I could forget." Her accent curled and stretched the words into beautiful significance.

Vincent made himself answer in a composed manner. "Loríen." He waited until she looked up at him. "I wanted to know."

She shook her head, but had nothing more to say. Really, what else could she have said?

Vincent stood up slowly. And, damning the consequences, he reached down and pulled Loríen to her feet by a careful hold on her arm. She recoiled but did not struggle. There didn't seem to be any fight left in her. "Come on," he murmured, as before. "Let's get out of this rain."

* * *

Obviously the walk back was a quiet one. They killed when they had to. Or, more to the point, Cerberus was quick in Vincent's hand and they had no trouble he couldn't manage, between their position in the jungle and the edge of town. Loríen followed him in something like a daze, which for the time being he had to consider an improvement over running more than half-mad through the wilderness without him.

As they slogged through the rain, Vincent found himself dealing with more guilt than he had felt since the early days after his awakening. Guilt relating to his former job and the violence he had been so good at. He had even come to enjoy it, to take a professional pride in his work as a kidnapper, murderer, and "extractor of information." He had been a man exactly like the one who had destroyed Loríen. Yet here he was, telling himself they had so much in common as victims and wanting to be the one she could trust as she struggled to breathe under the weight of her harrowing memories. He was full of shit, a hypocrite and a dangerous one too. It didn't matter that he was trying to be better; it mattered what he had _done_.

In spite of what his friends said, his past _mattered_.

When they got back to their room at the inn, Vincent deposited her in the bathroom with firm instructions to clean herself up – he didn't believe she would think to do it unless told. If he did not hear running water within five minutes, he decided, he'd go in there and put her into the shower himself.

It was better for both of them that the shower started without his intervention.

While he waited his turn, he made a concerted effort to either come to terms with the day's events or to forget them. Even though he knew neither would be possible any time soon, if ever. And, being honest with himself, he didn't want to.

He wanted to be the man she could trust, and to deserve it. He wanted to forgive himself, to truly believe he was no longer _that man_. He wanted to help her bear the burden of her pain, and overcome it, and be whole again. And if _she_ could do it, someone as utterly destroyed and hopeless as she was, then that meant he could put his past behind him too. Only, now that he knew exactly what he was up against, he could not deny being daunted by the task before him.

But Vincent Valentine was not a man inclined to admit the possibility of defeat.

Loríen came out of the shower wrapped in a flimsy towel. His first response of course was arousal, but his eyes were almost immediately drawn now to the terrible scars on her arms. He knew where they came from now and what they meant. He wished he could erase them for her. It had to be another torture, seeing them any time she looked at herself, and _remembering_.

Another thing struck him then, too. There was so much information in his head at the moment, trying to form into patterns that would make some sense. One pattern emerged as he watched Loríen move across the room wearing practically nothing with so little self-awareness she might as well have been a machine: he realized why he found her so irresistibly alluring.

She was so thoroughly destroyed, so torn apart by abuse and denigration and suffering, that she was always now broadcasting a subliminal plea to be hurt and taken and used because it was all she knew any more. And Vincent's only poorly-submerged violent instincts were responding to that, to the offer. He could try to blame it on his demons, but that would be a lie and he was no longer able to lie to himself so easily.

The answer to the question came to him with a stab of self-loathing. He reminded himself that he had promised her she would be safe with him. That meant safe _from_ him, too. He had no right to be having such thoughts.

He took a quick turn in the shower. Once all the blood was washed away, he found his wounds were nearly fully healed already. He dressed right there in the tiny room, and stepped out to find that Loríen was still wearing only her towel and standing motionless, gazing through the sliding glass door that led out to their room's private patio. Her hair, like his, was an unbrushed black cascade still wet and desperately in need of attention.

"Loríen."

It took her a moment, but she came out of her haze and turned her head to acknowledge him.

The first words he thought of saying had the feel of a command, and he knew now he needed to resist the impulse with her, for the sake of his mental health as much as hers. He paused to frame a more socially acceptable feeler instead. "I'm expected to have dinner with the Mayor tonight. Longstanding arrangement. How soon can you be ready to leave?"

She kept her enormous, haunted eyes on him for a very long time, but it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. Maybe she was incredulous that he could expect her to pretend to function normally after the afternoon they'd just had. Maybe she was deciding how to tell him to go screw himself. Maybe she was just trying to drag herself back into the present and leave her ghosts behind long enough to give him any kind of answer.

Eventually, she blinked and drew a deep breath. "Must we?"

It was the first time she had ever voiced a complaint, any hint that she was not willing to comply with his or Reeve's expectations or that anything mattered to her enough to volunteer an opinion one way or another. He couldn't even begin to know what to make of the fact that she was making her stand now, tonight, on this issue, after the day's events.

Vincent nodded, hating himself. "Don't worry: the people here don't expect polite, they're used to dealing with _me_. You could even pretend not to speak the language."

Amazingly, that brought a tiny wry smile to her lips. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared, but the fact remained. She took in another deep breath, bracing herself.

After some consideration, and with evident reluctance, she said, "Ten minutes, then."


	16. Chapter 16

_**Chapter Sixteen**_

**In** the middle of the night, Vincent was jolted awake from a not very restful sleep cycle by vividly gruesome dreams. He was unsurprised enough by it to wonder why he had bothered trying to sleep at all. Sighing, he sat up in the uncomfortable narrow bed and looked over to where he knew his companion would not be sleeping. As a matter of fact, her bed was still made.

One of two things, in Vincent's experience, could happen when a person finally unburdens himself of all the terrible dark unspeakable things he has been keeping locked away in his soul. Either a rebirth of sorts, a lightening of the spirits almost to a manic degree. Or complete shut-down. Job done, no further purpose.

Loríen was taking the second course. He had more than half expected her to, but it still made him angry. Waste always made him angry.

The nightmares weren't helping his mood, either. Not the nightmares, and not the way he was feeling about his reaction to the things Loríen had shown him. Definitely not the way he now knew he was viewing her, at least subconsciously. There was plenty on his mind making him want to prowl the night-dark streets for something to kill.

Instead, he got out of bed and joined Loríen on the patio.

She was looking up at the sky. It was a good night for it, the moon down already and no light pollution from the tiny sleeping town of Mideel to interfere. And while not better than getting some sleep before tomorrow's work, stargazing was an improvement over the level of interest in reality she had shown through dinner.

It was cold, too. This far south, autumn did not make its presence felt as strongly while the sun was overhead, but so deep into the night a chill breeze with a touch of the sea in it was hardly surprising. The woman resting her hands on the patio's railed edge did not seem troubled by the drop in temperature, and Vincent told himself he didn't care either.

Having talked enough tonight already, in his opinion, he stood beside her in silence. Being forced to keep the mayor's wife engaged when her repeated attempts to converse with Loríen fell on near-catatonic ears had not helped Vincent's mood, either.

The two of them had been standing there in the not-quite-silence of a tropical island night long enough for Vincent to actually mark a shift in the stars' positions before Loríen twitched or made a sound – both of which she did at once.

"It is so different, your sky." Her voice was a flattened husk of a whisper.

Vincent could imagine that would be a gross understatement of the truth, after so many thousand years.

"I knew all the stars, once," she added. "All the…" She paused, hunting for the correct term in her knowledge of what was to her an alien language. "…patterns," she eventually settled for. "It was one of my… passions, I think you would say." The word sounded almost laughably implausible leaving her lips in such a dead-dry tone.

After thinking about that for a while, Vincent drew a careful breath. He pointed, with the hand he was accustomed to sheathing in merciless metal, to a twinkling point of blue light slightly above and off to the left of Loríen's sightline. "That one is Adamantis. It's the brightest star in the sky, this time of year. Part of the constellation Septimius, the one-eyed tyrant. You see the right angle there? That's the bottom of his throne."

She was not looking.

"I am slipping, Vincent." Like every other piece of personal information she had ever shared, it was offered unexpectedly. "I knew it would happen, soon or late."

He stared at the Tyrant's brightly burning eye. "Slipping?"

Her gaze was no longer aimed upward, instead dropping to where her hands rested on the flimsy aluminum railing. "I told you I am not well, in the head. Not sane. Ever since the day he–"

He knew what she was referring to without her describing it, and was glad when she did not.

"Ever since then." She frowned down at her hands. "When they brought me home… I think I was like that for a year. How it is that I became aware enough to remember myself, and escape to the cave, that I do not know. But from the day you woke me, I knew this would happen. I knew it could not last, what clarity I had."

Vincent considered that, and how true it might or might not be. "What exactly do you mean by 'slipping'?" he finally questioned. He didn't know what he would do about it if it _was_ true, but first things first. He was nothing else if not pragmatic, when he was the one in control of his mind.

She sent a careful, investigative glance about her from left to right and back again, her eyes sliding over him as though he was a part of distant scenery. "When I… look around me, I am not often now seeing what is, but what was."

He thought that over.

"And I am feeling things for no cause," she went on, "with no control."

Mood swings. That would account for her outbursts lately.

"It is... taxing," she tried to explain. "Like today. After, I felt weaker, like I have lost a part of myself. It has been so, every time the madness has–" She paused again to hunt for the word. "–flared. It is always harder to… remember where I am, who I am. One day soon I fear I will forget."

He grunted. It sounded to him like she just needed something to make her feel connected to _now_, to make her want to try to hold on. Everything that mattered to her for better or worse was in her past, dragging her always backward and away from herself. He had struggled with the same issues, after Meteor, with no grand mission for salvation or revenge to hold his focus. If he had not been forced to let go, he would be like that still. Perhaps he might even have found a way by now to end his own life.

Strangely near to his last thought, Loríen spoke to him with sudden quiet earnest. "I cannot do this. Please, Vincent, you must help me find a way to return to sleep before I am gone forever inside these memories. That, or kill me. I will be sleepwalking through one long nightmare, with no way out, for the rest of time."

She was trembling, and not from cold.

Pushing himself away from the railing, away from her and her frightening need, Vincent put several steps between them before answering. "No."

Her whisper cracked under the weight of her desperation. "Please. Mercy."

He shook his head. "I told you in the beginning, I won't let you give up."

Loríen followed him with her wide, haunted eyes. "How can you be so much without pity, now that you know? You expect me to believe you understand suffering, that you want to help me, and there you stand telling me I must find a way to bear this, to live with the isolation and the pain and the constant knowing that insanity waits for me behind some hidden door?" Her voice, usually so low and soft, was skirling upward out of control on a note of frantic near-outrage. It was fortunate there were no other guests at the inn.

"Do you know what forever _is_, Vincent?" she demanded fiercely. "Do you know what it means that I am the only one left, and that I must bear what I have done and what has been done to me, alone, for all time? If you truly knew what it is to lose everything, you would–"

He couldn't let her finish that. "I do," he interrupted, growling it with more rage than he had intended. "You're not the only person ever to have lost something. Some people pick themselves up and carry on and find new meaning even if it hurts." It was maybe a little hypocritical of him, but he _was_ trying. "Do you really want to be the kind of person who just lies down and quits?"

Her pale face twisted into a bitter mask of pain. "This is not my world. There is no meaning left to find, for me."

"That's the despair talking." He drew a careful breath. "You are not the one who died, Loríen."

He thought she might slap him and braced himself for it. But she didn't.

Instead, she slugged him. Hard. A solid right hook to the jaw, with enough power behind it to rock him back into the railing. He felt and heard something dislocate.

He shook his swimming head and stared back at her, waiting.

She threw another punch when he made no response and no move to retaliate. He caught her fist this time, then the other one when she tried again, bending both arms around behind her back. Working with the leverage provided by the angle of her arms in his grasp, she raised herself up on her toes and rammed her forehead into his face.

Dazed, head ringing, he let go of her and staggered backward out of her range while his vision cleared. His nose was bleeding.

Loríen lashed out with an elegant high kick meant for the side of his face, but he caught her foot in both his hands at chest height.

She tried to use the force of his hold to scissor into a flying kick with the other leg, but his reflexes were too fast for that. He let go and ducked after she had already committed her weight to the kick, leaving her to land hard and badly on her side.

Before she could roll to her feet, Vincent had her pinned flat on her stomach on the unforgiving concrete, a knee planted in the center of her back, her arms drawn back and up too far. Much the way she had immobilized that young idiot back in the weapons shop in Kalm.

She kicked upward, but the angle was too awkward and the contact wasn't substantial. He could hear the sinews in her shoulders straining as she fought in vain against the unbreakable strength of his hold.

"Are you finished?"

She said nothing. Not that he had expected her to.

"I understand that you're angry, but not at me. Why not use some of that fire to make yourself care about living?"

Her breathing was labored, only in part caused by the knee driving into her back. "It is not so simple and you know that."

"I didn't say it was simple."

Loríen did not respond to that either. After a moment, she stopped struggling against his grip. He waited a safe count before letting go and pushing himself to his feet. She didn't move, even after he released her. It did not take him long to realize that she was crying, tears of frustration raining onto concrete as cold and merciless as she now thought he was.

Vincent watched her for a moment, and sighed. And went back inside, after deciding there was nothing besides further damage he could accomplish out here tonight. He had a broken nose and a dislocated jaw to see to, anyway.

* * *

Six days of hunting finally thinned the monster population in the Mideel area enough that Vincent felt the people would be safe until his next visit.

Six days had not done as much good for him personally, or for the woman under his protection. Aside from necessary communication on subjects relating to food and scheduling and the work they had to do, not a single stray word passed Loríen's lips after their scuffle on the patio. This silence, however, was not born of sullen angst or the fog of grey despair. This silence was fury-driven.

Vincent could live with that.

Still, that meant a very long, very _dull_ drive back to Kalm. He blamed the mind-numbing boredom for the fact that he was not paying as much attention as he should have to the road in front of him. The tire was already blowing out by the time he realized he had just driven over some large, sharp obstruction.

"Damn it."

He muscled the struggling car off to the side of the road and threw it into park. He was pushing the door open before the dust had settled.

Instinctively, he did a quick scan of their surroundings. The west side of the road passed close against a butte that had been blasted in half to make way for the progress of civilization. To the east was more rocky terrain. Good for enemies to hide in; not a good place to be caught immobile. He decided it would be in his best interest to get this taken care of quickly.

Front tire, passenger side. As Vincent came around the car to have a look, he noticed that the rear tire was quickly losing air as well, which was suspicious. He turned and looked back, toward whatever he had hit. When he saw it he swore again, more violently.

Loríen was getting out to see why they had stopped. He drew his gun while lunging for her door with the intention of slamming it closed before she was out and vulnerable.

"Ambush," he growled. "Stay in the car."

He wasn't quite close enough, and she was not the type to follow orders.

Even as he heard the telltale sound of gravel shifting beneath booted feet, she was already standing beside the car regarding him with surprise. Before he could say or do anything else, he heard the clank of several hammers striking in the chambers of several guns. There was no time to make for cover, only time to turn and shoot. He was rewarded with at least one grunt of pain from the direction of the rocks.

He counted the first seven bullets as they ripped into his body, pinning him to the door, but after that when they kept coming it was difficult to keep track. Loríen screamed his name.

"Run," he managed to gasp out despite the three or four bullets that had pierced his lungs.

She watched him fall. Her large green eyes, bright with horror, were the last thing he saw before his vision faded to black.

* * *

No matter how many times Vincent went through moments like this one, it was never any easier or less unpleasant to wake up riddled with bullet holes and short a few necessary pints of blood. The accelerated healing process did not exactly feel pleasant in itself.

Someone was slapping his cheek hard, a gruff voice insisting on his name. Groaning, aching in at least thirty places, Vincent opened his eyes slowly and had a first look around. It was bad.

He was lying in a sticky, drying pool of his own blood, the bulk of the cruiser mercifully blocking out at least some of the direct sunlight. The side panel had even more holes in it than he did. At a rough estimate, about two hours had already passed. An angular face hovered too close to his, difficult to focus on beneath the flamboyant shock of red hair.

"Man, have _you_ seen better days."

Anger flooded him, Death Gigas demanding to be let out in order to pound the cocky young Turk into bone dust. Vincent struggled to stay in control, at least until he had assessed the situation.

Reno very carefully was not kneeling in the blood puddle, but he didn't seem too bothered by it either. "Hey, you see which way they took your bird?"

Fighting against the pain, Vincent turned his head to have a look at the spot where he had last seen Loríen. No blood there but his, and no Loríen either. Then he spotted a tiny red-fletched dart lodged in the car door. Slowly, taking his time, he reached up and plucked it free and brought it close to his face for examination.

Tranquillizer dart.

"How do I know…" he wheezed with healing lungs, "it wasn't you?"

"I'm hurt, Valentine." Reno flashed an unabashed smile. "Besides, the boss is going to have my balls for lunch when he finds out I lost sight of the package. Why the hell d'ya have to get up so damn early, anyway?"

The wounded man felt like laughing, but he knew that would be unwise in his current condition. Reno, he surmised, had not planned to bother with him. He would have left Vincent to cook by the road side, if only he had a lead he could follow.

"My heart bleeds for you." Conveniently, he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

The Turk pointedly raised an eyebrow at the many bullet holes in Vincent's chest. "I'm touched."

"Have you…" Vincent paused and tried not to cough more. "…found anything?"

Reno tilted his head back toward a stand of boulders thirty yards off the east side of the road. "Some blood back there. Not enough for a kill shot, sorry. A lot of footprints. They came down here, took the dame. Looks like they cleaned out your materia, too. Then that's it, no more prints. I'm guessing their ride showed up right about then. I was hoping you'd know more. You get a look at 'em?"

"…didn't see anything."

"No kidding. That's a helluva trap you drove over, back there." Reno's grin made a quick return. "What's the matter? Mind not on the road?"

Vincent fought to keep his demon at bay. "Why… were you so far behind?"

"Fuck you," Reno replied pleasantly. "Want a ride?"

Vincent knew he shouldn't say it, but he couldn't resist. He was not in the best mood. "From _you_?"

The redheaded Turk winked at him. "Say the magic word, big boy. Y'know, I think you might be more fun when you've been shot half to hell."

"Fuck you," Vincent returned with difficulty.

"Only if you ask nicely." Reno unfolded himself from his crouch. "So, how's about you get off your lazy ass and stop bleeding all over the damn place? We got a damsel to rescue."

Vincent did a quick assessment of his condition and found that getting vertical wasn't going to be a possibility just yet. Unfortunately, he didn't have any faith in his red-haired savior's basic goodness; if he couldn't stand up and soon, he was quite sure he'd be choking on Reno's dust.

"Give me a minute," Vincent commanded.

"Take your time, princess. Not like the clock's ticking."

He carefully tucked the tranquillizer dart away into a pocket, took a moment to breathe, then reached for his phone. He dialed blind with one hand – holding the thing up where he could see it would have required more movement and more energy – and brought the phone to his ear, hoping he had pushed the right buttons.

"Tuesti here."

Relieved, Vincent let his eyes fall closed. "Reeve. We have a situation."


	17. Chapter 17

_**Chapter Seventeen**_

**The** room was mostly blues and greys, drab and unimpressive, but on the whole it was nothing like a dungeon. Loríen lay for a moment blinking herself awake on the colorless but not uncomfortable couch before deciding whether or not to move. There was a rabbit-eared television against the far wall, wedged in between bookshelves cluttered with board games. Next to it was a small desk groaning under the weight of a huge ancient computer and a battered black radio.

These were things she personally knew very little about, but had come to understand people commonly kept around for entertainment or for comfort or both. If she wanted to, she could have found similarities between these modern pastimes and the amusements of her own culture, but she had less than no interest in anchoring herself in this strange world or in satisfying anyone else by pretending to live a life that had ended many thousands of years ago.

In the far corner, a man was puttering around in the kitchenette. He had his back to her, tunelessly humming as he worked. As far as she could see, he was of no more than average height with a slight build – not exactly threatening.

She rolled into a sitting position. The momentary sick swimming in her head made her wish she had moved with more caution, but it passed. Other than the dizziness, there did not seem to be anything wrong with her. Feeling at her back for her weapon, she found as expected that she had been disarmed.

The man turned at the creaking of the couch. A smile – a genuine one – lit his eyes when he saw her awake. He had a kind-looking face, the features all even and precise in a way that made him appear trustworthy, the eyes such a mild shade of blue they were nearly an apology.

He was also not human.

"You should take it easy," he advised. He spoke with a rounded, warm, soothing accent – not at all like Vincent's flat, precise diction. "The tranquilizer will have you feeling a bit unsteady for a while yet."

He poured two cups of what these people called coffee and brought them both over to the couch, offering one to her. "Sorry about the sludge," he apologized, frowning judgmentally into his own cup. "It's practically liquid dysentery, but at least you'll be awake, right?"

When she did not accept the offered drink, he shrugged and set it on the low table within reach and took a healthy sip of his own, before returning to the kitchen area just in time to rescue a freezer pastry from the microwave.

Loríen watched his back, not feeling in the least reassured, or soothed. In fact, she was quite angry.

"Who are you?" she demanded. The mental image of Vincent wounded in so many places, sliding semi-conscious to the ground in a widening pool of his own blood while telling her to flee for her life, was not one she was happy to have acquired. "Why am I here? Where is Vincent?" Her clothes were spattered with his blood.

The kind-faced man came back with his own coffee and snack and slid into the plush drab chair next to the couch. "The man you were with?" He took a bite of his pastry, speaking with a muffled mouth. "Bleeding on the roadside, I should think." He washed the food down with a long swallow of his hot beverage. "I'm sorry: are you hungry? I wasn't expecting you awake quite yet, or I would have had something ready for you."

Cold fury coiled within her, making it difficult for her to breathe. Being made to care like this had her close to tears with the sheer frustration and fear of having to be alive. She hated him for making her feel. "Why?" He raised an inquiring eyebrow as he bit off another mouthful. "Why have you brought me here in this way?"

"Ah." He swallowed his food. "I apologize for the harshness of our methods, but we did what we had to do." He took on a solemn tone for the first time. "We had to get you away from that man."

Loríen was quivering with rage now. "_That man_ is my friend," she hissed with only the slightest hesitation in deciding what to call the brave dark individual who had been so patient with her, "and he is good. Who are _you_, that I am supposed to trust you and be grateful that you left my companion dying in the wilderness?"

She did not care that this person was one of her own kind when she was supposed to be the last. So she told herself.

"Dying?" He grimaced and shook his head. "Oh, no, love. It'll take more than a few bullets to put an end to Mr. Vincent Valentine." Leaning forward earnestly, he added, "Obviously there's a great deal you don't know about him; but he is far from 'good,' I promise you."

She tried to decide if she cared enough about staying sane to restrain herself from tearing his face off. Who did he think he–

"But I haven't introduced myself," he said with a quick, steadying smile, "and I am sorry for that. I'm not trying to be mysterious or anything. I'm just, frankly, a little star-struck. I've been waiting to meet you for a very long time."

Loríen scowled back at him.

He half-bowed in his seat, that trustworthy smile still lightening his features. "My mother named me Chísorai, but people call me Gaetano." He looked like he expected some kind of grand reaction to the revelation that he was _evlé'í_, like her – as though it had not been obvious from her first look at him. How out of it did he think she was?

She waited silently for him to offer more in the way of an explanation. She had asked many questions he had not yet answered, and she was not prepared to view this as anything other than a hostile abduction no matter what he wanted her to think. Her benevolent captor shoved the rest of his toaster pastry into his mouth and sent more coffee down after it, appraising her as he ate. No doubt waiting to see if she would crack first. He did not know her very well.

"You don't trust me," he finally observed.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You have not made me believe I ought to."

"Oh dear." He grinned. "Has anyone ever told you how scary you are? No? It doesn't help that you're prettier than I expected you to be."

"If you do not explain yourself, immediately–"

Gaetano laughed and interrupted her entirely heartfelt threat. "All right. Yes, you are _very _scary. I'm betting we were all like that, way back when. Right?" He shook his head ruefully and went on without waiting for an answer.

"You see, you're something like a legend. The only other _evlé'í_ I've met were my mother and uncle, and they weren't alive when we had our own kingdom. They never knew anyone from those days, either. That was a _long_ time ago."

As though she needed the reminder. "So I gather," she told him coldly. She did not fail to detect that he seemed to be saying his family was dead and he was the last. A part of her wanted to weep for that, wanted to know – now, at once – what had happened to her people to bring about their utter destruction. More of her wanted to be allowed to close her eyes to the whole thing for good.

She asked something else instead, and she asked it in her native language; two tests at once. "How is it you think you know who I am?"

The words were met by a look of regret. "Ah… sadly, my dear, I cannot understand you. It's a beautiful language, now that I hear it, but I never had anyone to teach me. I think it has been several thousand years now since anyone knew how."

Hearing him say that hit her harder than she had expected it to. None of this was new information, but when he confirmed it she almost felt she was receiving the blow for the first time. She frowned and repeated her question in his language.

The man fidgeted in his chair. "Hm. I've had a lot of jobs in my life. Trying to blend in, you know. A while back I was a lab-tech with Shinra, when they were working on the Avadi Project. These days I have quite a lot of connections in the WRO."

She was modestly relieved. If that was all he knew, that wasn't so bad. But it did not exactly set her mind at rest. Had he been one of the ones to abuse her while she slept? She had the hard life experience to teach her better than to believe she was safe from her own kind, but the prospect did not have to make her happy.

"I'm sorry I didn't get you out of that lab myself," he offered sadly, still fidgeting. "The team leader had it on record that you had died. Then the place was shut down – project re-purposed. If I had known…" He shrugged. "Imagine my surprise when my contacts at the WRO let me in on their latest discovery. I'm sorry it took so long to get you away from those people, but you know what Mr. Valentine is like. Had to take the time to set up an airtight ambush situation."

Agitated and unhappy, Loríen leaned forward and grabbed her coffee after all. It was very bitter, and a little grainy, and not at all good. She clutched the cup as if at a lifeline. "You think you were _rescuing_ me?"

Some of the reassuring kindness in his eyes faded. He looked a little put out by her ingratitude. "If you'd seen more of the world the way it is now, you'd understand."

Loríen sighed; she was tired of being rescued. Tired of the men in her life feeling like she had to be "saved" – from her own folly, or from mortal peril, or loneliness, or grief, or the heavy weight of responsibilities they believed someone so young and pretty could not _possibly_ be able to bear. Tired of other people having so much control of her life. Tired of being told what to feel, and how to live.

She was bitter that Vincent and Reeve and the others were insisting that she _have_ a life when she did not have the strength for it anymore. The only thing to do, she had reasoned early on, was cooperate until they grew bored with her and she could be free to find whatever kind of oblivion this strange world had to offer. This situation, now, was counterproductive to that plan. She was not going to get involved in whatever this was, and she was not going to let yet another stranger have any power over her.

Disregarding the danger of toppling from the dizziness, Loríen slammed her cup down on the low table and pushed herself to her feet. She swayed but stayed upright. "I thank you then for your concern," she stiffly told the surprised _evlé'í_, "but it is misplaced. I do not need your help or your protection. Good day, sir."

She had a hand on the doorknob before his voice stopped her.

"You can't leave."

Of course it would not be that simple. She had known. Why was everyone convinced she mattered so damn much? They didn't even know who she was.

Gaetano sounded apologetic, at least. "Now that we have you here, we really can't let you go. Secure location and all."

She smiled bitterly, forehead leaning against the cold grey door. "I am a prisoner, then?" It was amusing in a bleak way, how her life kept coming back around in the same awful patterns.

The chair squeaked as he stood up and came to stand behind her. "Not at all. It's just you matter too much for us to let you go back to _them_. Did you know there have been Shinra spies following you since you left WRO headquarters? Don't you realize they just want to get you back into a lab?"

She turned to face him. He was too far into her personal space for her comfort, the slightness of his frame suddenly not preventing him from seeming like a threat – the lingering curse of having been systematically broken by her enemy. There had been an earlier time in her life when she had been foolishly unafraid even when she ought to have been terrified. Knowing that she had the strength and skill to overpower him if it came to that was doing nothing to put her at ease. She regarded this man with her coldest glare, drawing herself up to her full height, but he did not back away.

"If that is true," she told him frostily, "it is my concern and not yours."

He shook his head, apologetic again. "Not quite. Like I said, you matter to us. Now that we know you're alive after all, the others would never let me turn you away."

She fought not to care, but eventually her innate curiosity fought its way to the surface. "The others?" She was furious with herself for asking.

Gaetano smiled, his mild blue eyes alight with innocent earnest. "We're all very excited to have you here. Why don't you come and meet them, and we can get you caught up."

Her curiosity was working hard to break completely free of the restraints she had kept it clamped under since her awakening, and the more inscrutable nonsense Gaetano spouted, the harder it was for her to resist finding out just what the hell was happening here. Others? Excited to meet her? Get her caught up?

A string of expletives slipped past her furiously tightened lips. "I will come with you for the moment," she told her host, "but do not think I am agreeing to be your prize just because you believe you have done me a service."

He was as excited as a child. "Good." He beamed happily. "It's lucky we found you now, before it was too late."

* * *

"Hey, just a thought – let's not do this again."

Vincent didn't think it was worth responding to Reno's suggestion, even though he happened to agree. The allure of at least sixty whole seconds of silence was too much to pass up by encouraging the chatty Turk. In the four hours they had been confined in a car together, Reno had hardly stopped talking; Vincent wished he could go back to a more innocent time in which he had _not_ known that Rude was religious about bi-monthly manicures, that Elena was into ladies, that Yuffie liked to be handcuffed during sex, and that apparently she had gone to Reno the very same day she had walked out on Vincent.

"Fuck." Reno pounded a fist into the dashboard for no apparent reason. "I mean, _fuck_."

Vincent continued to scan the passing scenery for any clues that could lead them to the Avadi woman's abductors. They had already covered this area, but in the absence of more information they agreed it was better not to get too far from the scene of the incident.

"This blows six ways 'till Tuesday."

Vincent could only sigh in response.

"If we just had some kind of–"

Mercifully, Reno was professional enough to shut himself the hell up when Vincent's phone rang.

Reeve started talking without waiting for a salutation that wouldn't have come anyway. "We've got something – a hit from the eyes I have in the Condor area. A blacked-out van was seen entering the compound five hours ago. Apparently the fort is not abandoned, as we had believed."

At a rough estimate, the ambush had occurred no more than ten miles from Fort Condor. It would make sense.

"Heavily guarded?"

"We're not sure yet. I have a team of scouts on it as we speak." He paused, from the sound of muffled talking in the background to receive a report. There was quite a lot of activity audible over the line. "But I thought you should know: Reno's story checks out. He was the only one detailed to follow you to Mideel. Rufus and the rest of his grunts have solid alibis for the last several days – ransacking the remains of the Shinra building, under tight surveillance by a team of stealth Caits. We're going to have to look elsewhere for this."

The existence of yet another and previously unknown adversary was not exactly a thing to be happy about, Vincent thought sourly. He said as much to Reeve, ignoring the dirty look Reno shot his way.

"I know." The Commissioner sighed. "How are you, by the way? Healing all right?"

Grunting an affirmative without bothering to assess whether or not it was true, Vincent said, "I can reach Fort Condor within the hour. Call me with the plan as soon as there is one."

Reno hardly bothered touching the brakes as he flipped the car around to head in the opposite direction, though he did put both hands on the wheel for once.

"Promise me you won't go in until the scouts report back," Reeve was saying as the tires screeched demonically against the pavement.

"Hm." Vincent had no intention of being stupid, but in his experience there was little point in making promises in a situation as fluid as this one. "Don't worry about me. Just get back to me with the intel when you have it."

"Vincent–"

He folded the phone shut before Reeve could lecture him on the right way to do his job.

"Condor, huh?" Reno asked breezily.

Vincent again sub-vocalized a confirmation. He was not looking forward to having Reno on board for the operation, but there didn't seem to be any way to avoid it. At least he knew what kind of training his compulsory partner had under his belt and could plan accordingly.

The flame-haired Turk punched him in the arm. "Man, all business. Even Chrome Dome is more fun than you."

"Touch me again, and–"

"You really are a hard-core asshole." Reno shook his head ruefully. "Shit. I can see why the kiddo had to bail."

With his demons already fighting hard to break free, Vincent found it difficult to remain level in the face of that observation. He concentrated on breathing for a moment before responding. "You don't know anything about it."

"Don't I?" Reno worked his eyebrows up and down meaningfully.

As a matter of fact, the issue that had ultimately sent Yuffie running was very nearly the opposite of Reno's accusation. Perhaps she had not confided in him after all, if that was what he thought. It made Vincent feel marginally better about the strange relationship between his former girlfriend and the murderer of Sector 7.

"Just drive the damn car," Vincent instructed blandly.

The flamboyant Turk's answering grin was insufferable.


	18. Chapter 18

_**Chapter Eighteen**_

**When** Loríen discovered that she was inside a mountain, under an immeasurable weight of earth and rock and stale ancient air, she experienced a series of intensely vivid flashbacks that had her hyperventilating and useless for a good quarter of an hour. Gaetano displayed sincere anxiety as he stood beside her in the dirt-walled hallway, waiting for her to come back to herself.

Numb catatonic insanity had been nice in its way, Loríen reflected – recalling in a vague dream-haze the days when she had been so far from herself and her right mind that her memories of the torture were buried too deep to register. Nothing else had registered either, of course. Not the people charged with her care eating themselves alive with worry for her; not the completeness of her fall and the horrible finality of all she had lost; not the death of her only sister, the last scrap of family she had left; not the fact that the kingdom was falling to pieces, tearing itself apart, rudderless and sliding deeper daily into widespread panic. If these things _had_ registered, it would have been too much.

Like it was now.

The longer she was awake, the more she was made to feel, the harder it all started to hit. Not just what she had suffered personally, but the other losses she had to infer, now. Her world had been dead for so long no one could say for certain when it had gasped its last. No one could say anything about it at all, except that it once had_ been_. Everyone she had ever known was dead. As an immortal, this was unexpected territory for her. She had not just the death of her lover to mourn, not just that of her sister, or her sister's husband, or herself, but that of an entire race. An entire civilization. Several millennia-worth of history, with only one imperfect not-quite-survivor left to remember and eulogize.

Everything was a trigger these days, too. It was no way to live, constantly turning blind corners into new unexpected reminders of the horror she had suffered. Everything made her remember.

The fountain in Vincent's garden made a music like the many hundreds of fountains her beautiful city had been known for – abandoned in a night of hopeless desperation, lost now to time. The brightness of the lights at WRO Headquarters put her right back into the harshly-lit room where she had daily endured new and diabolically creative innovations of the torturers' art. The vibrant ninja girl's energy made her feel again she was in her sister's presence, and she recalled all too clearly how Lyn had screamed as they destroyed her body. The painful red of Vincent's eyes made her see again the agony in Naoise's, the day he had suffered his last.

Being in this mountain brought back the slow crushing despair of being kept in a dark hole in the ground for a year, never allowed to see the sun. She found herself recalling too vividly the stench of her tiny cell – blood and death and damp rot and feces and hopelessness – so strong she was gagging as she crouched in the narrow hallway trying to breathe. She felt the coldness of her dungeon in winter, the roughness of the stone against her skin, the gnawing hunger that never went away because she was never given quite enough to eat.

She felt her muscles cramping, as when she had spent so many days, weeks, months unable to move, to stretch, even to stand up to her full height except when she was expected to walk the distance from her cell to the professionals' "laboratory." Some days they had to drag her; on those days, her enemy healed her before allowing them to begin their work anew. Pain stabbed at her in a hundred remembered places.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Eventually, she registered that the man had said it to her more than once and that there was both curiosity and concern in his voice. She shook her head, fighting to draw breath, grateful that at least he wasn't trying to touch her. Physical contact, no matter how innocent, now felt to her like an attack.

The fit passed eventually, leaving her weak and unsteady. When she climbed to her feet, Gaetano was watching her.

"Claustrophobia?" His tone was warm and indulgent, gratingly so.

"I am not familiar with the word," she deflected, trying to forget what had just happened. "Shall we continue?"

In fact, they had not gotten more than ten paces beyond the door of the lounge before her fragile mental state had crumbled under the weight of triggered memories.

Gaetano nodded and gestured for her to proceed. "But really, love, if you need anything, please just ask."

Truthfully, she was uncertain how long she could last in here before losing it completely. This was even worse than the ferry to Mideel, a mirror of her journey to the island where she had so blindly and so disastrously walked into the trap waiting for her. This was _much_ worse. That was starting to seem almost pleasant by comparison. But Gaetano had already made it clear that, prisoner or not, she wouldn't be going anywhere without his permission. She would not beg.

Besides which, she was still curious enough to want the answers he had offered.

"I have already asked for my freedom," she told him with all the composure she could scrape together, "and you have already denied it. Perhaps you could let the matter go, and we can continue on our way?"

For a moment, he seemed like he might say something, but then he just shrugged and led her down the hall.

Following in his wake, she had to swallow the bitter truth that even if he had let her walk out the door and out of the mountain, she would not have made it very far. She would have had her breakdown in the corridor anyway, and probably another when she found herself under the open sky again without her jailor's express permission. Probably another when she let herself think about trying to find and help her wounded companion – about the terrible injuries she had seen him sustain, mortal injuries though Gaetano claimed otherwise.

They made a lot of turns, even climbed a few ladders. In some places the walls were finished, but most of the time they were just hewn stone or packed dirt. It was one of the strangest places she had ever been in. Eventually they came to a trapdoor that led them up into a squat building with afternoon sunlight coming in through the small windows, and she understood that they were on top of the mountain.

"This way," Gaetano invited, smiling.

He led her out of the shack, into daylight. She blinked for a moment, adjusting. The fresh air was almost impossibly delicious after her hysteria underground. There was even a light mountain breeze to caress her face, the song of some hunting bird crying its freedom at the edge of her hearing. It reminded her a little of–

"This isn't everyone," Gaetano told her brightly, "but it's a start."

She followed her host's gaze and saw what he was looking at with such pride.

A score of men – soldiers – were performing drills. Military training exercises. They had cleared and leveled an area on the side of the mountain and were going through the motions of war. At a signal from the man beside her, they stopped what they were doing and started up the slope toward her with a speed and precision she could only find frightening.

When the first pair reached her, Loríen saw that they were not human either. At least, not entirely. Gaetano had said he was the last of their kind, and these soldiers had some human characteristics muddying their evident _evlé'í _traits. Half-breeds? In her time, they would have been scorned and shunned.

At present, Loríen was not certain _what_ to feel.

They were both young, the two rapidly closing on her position. It was hard to pin down exact ages with the human blood confusing things, but they were not far past their adolescence. One of them had intensely green eyes, like her own; the other was conspicuously tall – taller than Vincent – with an imposing aura. Both were too intent on her, neither giving Gaetano a second glance as they drew near.

The green-eyed one walked right up to her and grabbed her into a fierce embrace.

It was so unexpected, so sudden and emotional and intense, she could not keep herself from letting loose a small shriek of surprise. He did not let go. If anything, he tightened his grip. Her instincts took over without her permission; the next thing any of them knew, the bright-eyed young man was on his knees clutching at a bruised crotch.

After a moment of stunned silence, the tall one laughed delightedly. "Serves you right, dumbass. Damn, did you ask for that. Grabbing onto a confused stranger."

Gaetano flashed a grin at the tall soldier. "Be kind, now. I'm sure he's already realizing it might have been a mistake."

The young man was in such pain, Loríen almost felt bad enough to apologize. It wasn't really in her nature, though, and she was not in the right kind of mood for this. If there _was_ a right kind of mood for this.

"She's not a stranger," the green-eyed man said quietly between labored breaths.

His tall friend chuckled. "You are to her, moron." There was no force behind the insult, only good-natured teasing.

Loríen was feeling entirely too exasperated and – as the laughing one had said – confused. "Will someone please explain what is happening here and who you people are?"

More of the soldiers were reaching them now, but none of them repeated the first one's enthusiastic error. Instead they congregated about her like religious fanatics at the feet of their beloved leader, and it was more alarming than the uninvited hold had been. She was getting a seriously bizarre feeling here. All twenty of them were half-breeds like the first two, all of them young, some of them female, dressed in the same grey uniform. All of them slightly, disturbingly familiar in some way she could not name.

"Of course," Gaetano answered calmly. He raised his soothing voice only a little. "Friends, this is Loríen. We have been waiting for her for a very long time now. Please make her feel welcome."

The warm murmur of greetings enveloped her for a moment. She felt like she was being held in another firm embrace and it was stifling. The urge to run was almost too strong to overcome.

Her host was addressing her again. "This is the family," he explained patiently. "We are what's left. I told you I used to work for Shinra?" He paused, as if to give her a moment to recollect their earlier conversation. "I rescued them, all of them, from an experimental training program when I found out how they were being used. Since then we've been trying to make some kind of life for our people. Trying to build a future. You being here…" He shook his head, grinning. "It's almost like a miracle, especially it happening _now_."

This last observation was met with a general hum of agreement from the others.

Loríen watched them with suspicion, wondering just what the hell that meant.

The green-eyed one who had so inappropriately accosted her was back on his feet, looking apologetic but still intensely awe-struck. "Forgive me, please," he implored. His voice was familiar. "I know I shouldn't have. It's too soon."

Too soon for _what_?

"I'm Raver," he informed her carefully. He looked like he wanted to reach out and take her hand or something, but knew better now. Instead, he jerked a thumb back in the direction of his tall friend. "That's Smalls. I… You don't know what it's like for us, finally meeting you."

His earnest introduction was echoed by more than a dozen voices inundating her with strange names that meant nothing to her.

Cruise, Jangle, Rook, Pepper, Lefty, Jet. Monkey. Forty-nine. Many more that went right by without sticking. It wasn't her language and she was no expert, but these did not sound like real names to her.

She studied Raver for a moment, trying and failing to make sense of his excitement. "No. I do not."

Gaetano cleared his throat. "I think it's probably time to settle up," he said to the one called Smalls. "We'll want to be ready to leave by sundown."

"Yes, sir," the tall youth replied.

"Raver," her kind-faced captor said to the affectionate one, "why don't you come with us and we can get Loríen fed while we answer her questions. You too, Jangle." One of the young women – slender and red-haired and spoiled-looking – made a small noise of complaint at his elbow. Gaetano sighed. "Yes, Trigger, you can come too." He raised his voice again, just enough to convey that he was addressing the group. "The rest of you, help Smalls tidy up. Liftoff at dusk."

Loríen had absolutely no idea what was going on. She was, in fact, even more confused than she had been waking up in the drab underground lounge. Where had all these half-breeds come from, and what were they that they were training like an army; and what did Gaetano mean when he said he was building a future for their people and what was he talking about when he brought up the luck of their timing? Why did they all think they knew her, and why were they so enthusiastic about meeting a perfect stranger? Something here was not sitting right, and she had too strong a suspicion that something awful was about to happen.

Her desire to be left alone was more powerful than ever.

"Come on," the girl named Trigger said to her, shyly. "The mess is only down one level. I'll show you."

* * *

The problem with waiting was that Vincent had to do it with Reno by his side – first smoking then munching on breath mints then systematically shredding the nearby foliage in his boredom, all while pretending not to be cold in his flimsy suit as the brief autumn daylight waned. And always, _always_, talking nonsense.

"You know you don't really love that dame."

Vincent wanted to reach out with his claw and remove the Turk's larynx. He had done nothing at all to invite the observation, and had no intention of encouraging further opinions on the subject. Reeve would be contacting them at any moment with the plan, and Vincent wanted to be ready to act – not wishing he could climb to the top of the mountain and throw Reno off of it.

He sighed. "…I don't recall ever saying I do."

Reno responded to that with a dry, world-wise chuckle. "Whatever, man." He blithely ignored the scowl with which Vincent seemed intent on burning through the boulder that was their cover.

"You don't love her," the deceptively slight redhead said again. "What you _want_ is to fuck her, and I get that. She's hot. Scary hot." He made some kind of lascivious face with busy eyebrows and scrunched-sideways lips. "Scary and wrong. Like, _oh yes_ and _hell no_ at the same time. Like, she'd do you and kill you afterward. She wouldn't even _be_ so hot if she wasn't so damn scary. I get it. I'd fuck her too." Another thought seemed to give him immense pleasure, and he added it with relish: "From the looks of her, I say fifty gil she's into the kinky stuff."

It was going to be dark soon. They had been waiting by this damn rock a stone's throw from Fort Condor for hours. It had been a very long and very unpleasant day and Vincent wanted nothing more than to hurt someone who deserved it. He did _not_ want to discuss Loríen, especially not his feelings where she was concerned and especially not with Reno. It had occurred to him that he couldn't even begin to guess at the mental state he might find her in, when the time came, or even if she would want to be rescued by him. They hadn't exactly been on the best terms this morning, and she had been less than half a hair short of total psychological collapse.

"You should stop talking now."

His unlikely partner only laughed at the violence promised by Vincent's tone, and adjusted his crouch so he was speaking closer to the gunslinger's face. "Listen, man. What I'm saying is, you only _think_ you love her because you've got some noble shit in your head about wanting to save her, but that's not the same thing. You're all mixed up like that when it comes to skirt."

Vincent was uncertain how much longer he would be able to keep his finger off the trigger. "Enough."

But the Turk pressed on with reckless courage. "In fact, I don't even think it's her you want to save." He laughed mirthlessly, an unpleasant sound. "I think you've got some weird complex going on where you think saving her means saving yourself, and that's just bullshit. Creepy bullshit. Basically, you want to fuck _yourself_. That's messed up, man."

Vincent did not trust himself to respond with words, but he thought the warning growl said enough.

Reno laughed again, holding his hands up in a gesture of renouncing guilt. "Take my head off if you want, but that doesn't make me wrong."

Which one of them was talking bullshit? And why should he be taking philosophical advice from a man without a conscience? Drawing several deep breaths, Vincent made himself reply sanely. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?" Reno seemed fond of that comeback, and he delivered it with maddening certainty.

"No. You don't."

Two minutes passed in silence. Reno fidgeted with the pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket. Vincent started to hope maybe their little tête-à-tête was at an end. Then Reno cleared his throat gruffly.

"Hey, you know, I'm just tryin' to–"

Vincent turned to face him for the first time in the conversation, demonic red eyes boring into turquoise with what he knew was frightening intensity. "Have you ever read my file?"

Reno blinked. "Huh?"

"My company file," Vincent menaced. "Have you ever read it?"

The other man snorted. "Sure. Hell, it's required reading for new recruits."

"_Hnh."_ Vincent scowled into the face of the man inexplicably trying to tell him what was in his own head. "So you know why I work alone."

Reno smirked back at him, foolishly undaunted. "Yeah, sure. You're some kinda head case. 'Doesn't play nice with others.'"

Vincent decided this would be the best moment to check Cerberus's chambers and make sure the safety was functioning properly. "In that case, you should know how I feel about being psychoanalyzed. And you should know that I mean it when I say _enough_."

The Turk shook his head. "You ain't gonna shoot me, Valentine. You'd blow your cover."

"Maybe," Vincent growled, letting a little demon show in his eyes. "But if you piss me off enough to get one of the others out here, I may not be able to protect you."

Reno only laughed at that, too. "So you're tough. Big deal. I'm only trying to show a little solidarity here. You should thank me for caring."

Vincent was still trying to decide whether it was worth responding to that or whether he should just claw the other man's throat out after all, when he got the call from Reeve.

The Commissioner sounded breathless and very concerned. "Vincent. You have to go in _now_. I repeat, move in. No time for stealth. My scouts say they're preparing to evacuate by airship. I'll radio the team and have them head in behind you, but you've got to get in there now. Do you remember the way?"

Vincent was already on his feet and moving, Reno scrambling to catch up with his longer strides. "Yeah, I remember. Do we have a head count?"

"Looks like twenty, military-trained. Good luck, Vincent."

Pocketing the phone, Vincent spoke to Reno without turning his head. "Go back to the chopper the reinforcements came in, and get up to the landing pad. We're going to need a way out in a hurry."

There was laughter in the Turk's voice. "You trust me?"

"No. Get to the landing pad anyway."

"Sure thing, Boss."


	19. Chapter 19

_**Chapter Nineteen**_

**The** mess, as the girl named Trigger had called it, turned out to be the communal dining hall where they ate their bland military-issue food. Raver got Loríen a tray overflowing with things she wasn't sure she recognized, and sat far too close to her elbow awaiting – something. Her approval, or thanks, or words of appreciation for the quality of the fare, or something else entirely that she didn't know how to give.

Even though she didn't feel like eating, she settled for telling him _thank you_. She hoped it would do. He looked like he wanted more.

While she couldn't give him that, she did realize it had been several hours since her last meal and that she really ought to eat something whether she wanted to or not. As she ate, Gaetano talked.

He told her about his life. It was a sad story, one she wished she could feel sorry for, but she was incapable of accessing those emotions anymore. Sympathy. Grief for other people's pain. Couldn't do it anymore. She'd had too much already. And how could any one man's grief do more to her than the fall of an entire kingdom? No, she could not make herself feel for his loss.

Gaetano was born the day his father died.

His mother, pregnant with three weeks still to go, had a craving for banana cream pie and sent her husband out to find some. He was knifed for his wallet, never came home. When she got the news, she went into labor. An hour later, Gaetano was born, delivered by his uncle. The three of them were all that remained of their kind.

They survived the years by hiding who they were. Blending in. Taking on a new set of identities and building new lives every few years when they didn't age but everyone around them did. Gaetano's mother told him stories, tales of the old kingdom. She told them not out of any sense of fond nostalgia, not with any wistful longing. She told them with a grim resolve, with quiet smoldering rage, so that Gaetano could never forget how much they had lost. How low they had fallen. She said it was important for him to remember, always, how dangerous humans were and that they would not hesitate to finish the job if they discovered any _evlé'í_ yet remained.

Gaetano grew older. They moved a lot. It was not an easy life, but it was a life. Sometimes they got too comfortable, stayed too long, raised too much suspicion. One of those times, the townsfolk lynched his mother for a witch. Tied her to a sack of rocks and tossed her into the river. When Gaetano's uncle tried to save her, they took him too.

That had been a very long time ago. More than five hundred years, Gaetano said. He had been alone ever since, making his way carefully in a world that had no place for his kind.

He was an engaging storyteller. Even though his young companions had certainly heard it all before, they were visibly affected as he wove his tale, hanging on his every carefully-chosen word. Loríen began to see how a figure so mild and unthreatening could have become a leader to a group of young warriors. They revered him.

She also began to see the core of anger hidden well beneath the pleasant surface. It was familiar, disturbingly. Another circle in her life coming back on itself.

She had to ask, coaxing the information from him, before he would talk about the legends his mother had taught him in his childhood. His reticence struck her as more than a little odd, considering how much he obviously enjoyed hearing himself talk. But Loríen needed to know, and so she kept prodding, leading, challenging. Her people had not exactly been thriving, in her time, but they had been alive. She needed to know.

The young half-_evlé'í_ allowed their mentor to speak, listening as intently as Loríen as he described the fall of the Old Kingdom. This time, she was unable to keep herself from caring. And it _hurt_.

"According to legend," the slender, sandy-haired man told her regretfully in a cadence that suggested the words were rehearsed, "it was three wars that killed us. The first, in the noontide of our glory, when humans drove us from the Homeland and into hiding. The second, when the last queen brought us out of hiding, paving the way to our doom. And the third, when that same queen went mad and died, and civil war made us vulnerable to the final attack from our human enemies. So the stories say."

A cold was creeping through Loríen's veins, like the chill of the tomb.

"That third war," she whispered, scarcely able to find her voice. "There was fighting within the kingdom, between our own people?"

Gaetano nodded solemnly, brow furrowed in concentration. "You see, when the queen lost her mind, her advisors and nobles had her removed from the throne. It seemed the natural thing to do. But then there was some disagreement over who should take over in her place, and it was suggested by some that it smelled of conspiracy. People accusing other people of staging the whole thing just to seize power. And then she died. Or disappeared, the stories aren't clear on that. Factions formed, blood was shed. The humans who had already tried to destroy us took advantage of the situation and struck while we were weak." He shrugged and made a vaguely fluttering gesture with his hands. "We were pretty much scattered to the winds at that point. And we've just been dying out one by one ever since."

Loríen was having a hard time breathing. "What was her name, this queen?"

The mild blue eyes betrayed nothing. "My mother didn't know it to tell me. I think it's been a very long time since anyone cared about the old stories enough to hold onto the details. What does it matter what we were? What we _are_ is extinct."

"But you're here, now," said the young soldier called Jangle, speaking for the first time. He watched her with bright, expectant eyes.

She looked back at him feeling sick in her stomach and more than a little frightened of where this was going.

"Don't be crass," Gaetano gently reprimanded his young protégé. "It's too soon for that, and you know it." He smiled comfortingly at Loríen. "He is right, though. Your coming to us is the start of a new beginning."

Ignoring what she felt certain he meant – and how ill the idea made her – she chose to pursue a different line of questioning. "You have told me your story, but what about the others? Where did they come from? Are they…" she swallowed and asked anyway, "…your children?"

The green-eyed boy – Raver – got up suddenly and collected the remains of her meal, carrying the tray back into the kitchen. Trigger and Jangle seemed intensely interested in the mottled grey-and-orange surface of the table.

Gaetano cleared his throat. "I think, maybe… that needs to be another conversation, one we don't have time for at the moment. You already know I took them from Shinra, and that much is good enough for now." He sounded, for the first time, not entirely certain of himself. "We've been working toward freedom for our people. You don't know what it means to us to have you here now of all times."

Raver came back and sat again beside Loríen, closer than before. She concentrated on not shrinking away, sensing that the last thing she wanted to do here was appear weak.

Instead, she asked another question. "You keep speaking as though you have a plan. Am I right in assuming you mean a war of some kind?"

Again Gaetano showed some hesitation. "Not… war, exactly." He frowned. "All we're doing is clearing a path for the future, the only way that will ensure our safety."

This was sounding too familiar. Loríen's heart thudded nauseatingly. "Exacting revenge, you mean."

"They deserve it," the redheaded girl put in fiercely, the first time she had spoken in more than an hour. "You don't even know – you've been asleep–"

"_Trigger."_ Gaetano's tone was sharp, a reprimand. If he wasn't their father, he still acted like it. He flicked his mild blue eyes from the girl back to Loríen, and his expression underwent a subtle change. "She's right, though. You can't possibly know the horrors our people have seen. If you did, you would understand why revenge isn't out of order. But this isn't about that. It's about survival."

His words, whatever their apparent meaning, were a lie. Loríen could feel that much, even as tangled as she was inside herself and her own pain. He knew how to smile and say the right things and how to soothe, but none of that was real. What was _real_ was his anger, the hard core of it at the center of who he was. His anger, and his arrogance. Because no matter how unassuming he was trying to make himself appear, she could see that here was a man who honestly believed he was never wrong, and who expected others to buy whatever he was selling because he was the one selling it.

Loríen had met him before, or a man so like him they might as well have been one and the same.

She gathered herself, willing her heart to slow. "Did you ever think," she said carefully, "that perhaps there is a reason why our people died? That perhaps we do not belong in this new world?"

"You don't mean that," Raver murmured. He glanced up at his leader, eyebrows drawn. "She didn't mean that."

"Of _course_ we don't belong," Gaetano snapped, visibly angry for the first time. "Why do you think it's taken so long to figure out how to take back what's ours? You're not really going to tell me you'd rather see us vanish forever?"

Loríen had no idea how to answer that. All she knew was that her feelings were far from clear on the subject.

The girl, Trigger, glanced up at the clock on the wall. Raver saw her and mirrored the gesture. He cleared his throat, addressing Gaetano in a strangely tense voice. "Wheels up in half an hour. We need to talk about how she fits into the plan."

The mild-eyed _evlé'í_ shook his head at the younger man. "That's not a good idea. Not until we're up north. We have to get secure."

This was all very alarming, and was moving too fast too far out of Loríen's control. She folded her arms across her chest. "I am going nowhere with you."

Jangle sighed.

"You have to," Trigger told her anxiously. "We need you."

"I doubt that. Somehow, you have managed this long without me."

Gaetano put out a hand to touch her arm, but she jerked away before he could make contact. The reaction did not seem to make him happy. "Please, Loríen. I know this is all very sudden, but–"

He stopped talking not because he had no more to say, but because at that moment the mountain reverberated with the sound of gunfire followed by a terrifying animal roar.

It was Raver who summed things up: _"Shit."_

Gaetano was on his feet. "Time to go." The other soldiers were up and moving as he shouted orders. "Raver, Trigger, see that all the materia made it on board. Jangle, get down there and help Swift and Bola hold him off. We'll meet you at the landing pad."

There was shouting now, frightened cries echoing through the many tunnels. The three young soldiers ran off to do as instructed without further delay.

Her captor-savior reached out a hand, an offer but also a command. "Come on. We don't have much time." His invitation was punctuated by another roar from somewhere in the mountain.

She stood, took a step further out of his reach. "Him?" She watched his eyes shift through a series of intense emotions that included fear.

"The devil himself." He said it with absolute sincerity. "We'll talk about it once we're safe. But that won't happen unless we get going, _now_." He reached for her hand, more urgently this time, actually trying to grab hold.

"Do not touch me," she snapped. She wondered as she said it just how insane she had to be in order to care more that a man had nearly touched her than that some kind of demon was loose in the mountain probably tearing people asunder. She wondered why she was more afraid of the things Gaetano had just told her – and not told her.

More gunfire. More screams, more animal cries. Closer now.

"I _will_ force you to come with me if I have to," Gaetano told her, regret overshadowed by necessity. "Please don't make me do that." For the first time, briefly, he allowed her to see power in his eyes. A threat, and a promise.

She was undecided. She unequivocally did _not_ want to go with this man to whatever fate he had in mind for her; but it seemed just a little too foolish to stand here waiting for a monster to find her. Seeing her indecision, Gaetano grabbed her hand and pulled her out into the hall. She only fought him a little. Something was definitely getting closer, a dark strong presence unlike any she had ever encountered before, and it was angry.

Gaetano ran with her back the way they had come, toward the ladder that would put them topside. He did not wait to see if she intended to cooperate, but yanked her up behind him, one-armed, with surprising strength.

They were emerging into the brilliant, disorienting flame-like light of sunset when she felt whatever-it-was come up behind them. The man pulling her onward did not allow her to turn around. Ahead of them, a massive vehicle of some kind was humming hugely, parts spinning, awaiting its final passengers.

Jangle ran to and then past them, shouting as he came on. "Bola and Swift are dead. He's right behind me." He turned and fired with a weapon like Vincent's as he moved. Loríen heard two of the shots tear into animal flesh, eliciting a roar that seemed to shake the mountain to its roots. "Move it!"

Gaetano was breathing hard, from exertion or terror either one. He yanked her forward. They were almost safe. She fought to turn around for a view of their pursuer.

The first thing she noticed, of course, was the sheer bulk of the creature. Massive and shaggy and intimidating, eyes glowing an impossible demonic gold, fierce teeth bared and claws extended as it barreled onward despite several streaming wounds in its chest and torso. Closing the distance with alarming speed.

Then she noticed the garment about the creature's middle. A distinctive, unmistakable red cloak.

She stumbled in her surprise, lost her footing on the loose shale, slid to her knees. Gaetano, unprepared, lost his grip on her arm and his momentum had carried him several steps past her before he was able to recover and turn back. By then the beast was nearly on top of her.

Swearing, Jangle pumped several more rounds into the charging animal as his leader tried to force Loríen back onto her feet. With no time to decide anything, only to do or not do, Loríen did not allow him to pull her up. If she was about to die, she would not do it running. She stayed on her knees as the bleeding, shaggy _thing_ in the red cloak overtook her position.

Gaetano was swearing too. At her, not at the creature. "Damn it, we _need_ you!" But he was running now, leaving her behind, urging Jangle on with him. They reached their vessel with the beast nipping at their heels – it passed her by without a glance – and the ship lifted off the ground before the bay doors had finished closing.

She saw Gaetano turn, then, in the doorway. He stared at her across the distance growing between them, reached into his jacket, and pulled out a gun. She knew, even before he started to take aim, that he would not be wasting another shot on the monster howling below him. He was saying something she could not hear over the sound of the wind and the engines but she was not trying to listen, already rolling for cover as the bullet came for her. A moment later, the flying ship was retreating into the sunset and Loríen was alone on the mountain.

Well, not quite alone.

Emerging from her impromptu cover behind a pile of empty wooden crates, she searched out and immediately spotted the red-clad figure on the ground where the airship had left it. Only, now there was no fur. There were no fangs, no claws, no wickedly curving horns. Just Vincent on his knees, clutching the ground with one armored hand, blood leaking onto the stones beneath him.

She had no words.

He lifted his head with effort, turning it at her approach. His eyes were red again, and it was only fitting – as much pain as he had to be in. "Are you all right?"

Surreal. Just, not possibly real, none of this. And _he_ was asking _her_ if she was all right? How was she even to begin answering?

She did not have to. Reno stunned her into an even more profound silence by coming up over the ridge of the mountain then in a WRO-marked chopper. Her brain was too overworked to wrap itself around the idea of the two of them – Vincent and the red-haired Shinra bag-man – working together to rescue her from her own people. It flat-out refused to acknowledge that Vincent was apparently some kind of shape-shifting hell-beast and that she had been unknowingly at his mercy all this time.

Reno put the machine down lightly and kept it running while they both climbed aboard. He shook his head when he saw Vincent, an insouciant grin hanging carelessly off his thin lips.

"Damn, man. Twice in one day? You got issues."

Vincent only grunted, but Loríen did not suppose he was in any condition to respond properly.

She wasn't either.


	20. Chapter 20

_**Chapter Twenty**_

**Vincent** spent an entire thirty hours asleep. He felt he deserved it.

When he finally emerged into the WRO's fluorescent-lit corridors in search of people and explanations, his wounds had mended and he almost felt better. He believed answers would help, although many of the answers he wanted were ones he was going to have to spend some time arriving at himself, and that wasn't going to happen any time soon. Shaking everyone else down for some goddamn enlightenment would have to do.

Of course, it was far too early for anyone else to be up yet. Or, far too late for anyone to still be up. Whichever. It was the dead time between night and day, when he least enjoyed being alone with the other things living in his head. He decided to eat something.

Seeing the back of the black-haired woman's head as she sat by herself in the silence of the cafeteria, Vincent realized he should have expected to find her awake, at least.

She sat up straighter when he came in, as if she felt him, but she did not turn. He got himself a bowl of whatever was being kept warm in the single chafing dish that had not been put away for the night, and took an age-hardened dinner roll to go with it. His beverage choices were water or lukewarm coffee. He got a glass of water. He put it all on a tray and carried it over to Loríen's table and took a seat across from her.

The stew/gruel concoction was terrible. The roll was dry. He was reminded of what he had told Tifa, about having to learn to cook because of dreadful cafeteria food. He ate in silence until it was gone.

Loríen had a cup of coffee in front of her, untouched, but nothing else. She looked like she had a lot on her mind.

Vincent disposed of his tray and came back to sit at the table.

Loríen was looking at him in a way she never had before. No, not quite true: she had looked at him like this on the helicopter. Like the world had suddenly stopped pretending to make even a shred of sense, and it was somehow his doing.

"That… _thing_. The creature." Her voice shook a little. "The Shinra doctor made you like that?"

He nodded. This conversation had been inevitable since the beginning.

"It… is inside you? Somewhere?" She had never given him so much of her attention before, not even when she had begged him in Mideel for his help finding oblivion.

He nodded again. "There are others." Better to get it all on the table. But he was not fooling himself into believing that he could possibly predict where she would go from here. She was, frankly, insane. And she had just been through something quite likely to have destabilized her mental state even further.

Besides, he didn't even know how he _wanted_ her to react.

Just as he had himself convinced that nothing she did now would surprise him, she proved him wrong by looking across the table at him with a tear gleaming in each eye. "And you _live_ like that?"

"I don't have a choice," he told her flatly. "I can't die." And because he was being brutally honest here, he added, "I've tried."

She flinched. One of the tears escaped, and then the other, both of them darting swiftly down her unnaturally white cheeks and then chased by a second from each eye. She appeared sad and angry at the same time; and also, for once, at least a little afraid of him. This was worse, this look, than when she had refused to look at him at all.

Loríen seemed to be thinking about what he had said, deciding how to respond. She opened her mouth as if to speak, closed it again. Then she stood up and made for the door. It wasn't like she was trying to make a dramatic exit. More like the conversation was just, suddenly, over for her. Or needed to be over. She was emotional and confused and she had just been asking him questions, like she cared.

What the hell had happened to her at Condor?

He asked the question only a little more tactfully than he had thought it, stopping her in the doorway with his voice.

When Loríen turned to answer him, her eyes were dry. "It was my fault, what happened to my people." It was not a complaint, not a self-pitying whine. It was flat, absolute, utter condemnation. "He told me. It is my fault we died."

Vincent frowned. "That seems unlikely."

She returned his gaze for a moment, shook her head in a way that could have meant any one of a dozen things, and left him alone in the cafeteria.

* * *

**It** was still too early to do anything else, and he was thoroughly confused by the behavior he had just witnessed, so Vincent decided to have a look at the recording of Loríen's debriefing. Maybe that would provide some clarity to the general element of _what the hell –?_ he was experiencing at the moment.

Reeve, he decided as he watched, needed help with non-hostile interrogation tactics. The recording was more than an hour long, during which Loríen freely and with very little prompting provided all of fifteen solid minutes of genuine information. The rest of the time was taken up by the Commissioner failing to understand that she had already, willingly, told him everything she knew or could report about her abduction. It was obvious that he was just trying to be thorough, but he ended up coming off more than a little antagonistic.

Beside the point. Vincent watched, and gleaned what there was to glean.

"The man who took me, Gaetano, he is my kind," the recorded Loríen said to the recorded Reeve, both of them sitting in the Commissioner's office. She had already given him the straight factual report; this was the analysis. "Avadi – is that what you call us?" She went on when Reeve nodded: "He believed he was… rescuing me from you."

"Rescuing you?"

"Yes. He spoke of the WRO – and of Vincent especially – with great dislike. But to me, he was kind."

"I see."

"There were others with him, his followers. Half-human, half-Avadi."

Vincent felt suddenly ill.

She went on. "They were… training for something. At least twenty of them that I saw, but he said there were more. He said he rescued them from an experimental Shinra program."

On the recording, Reeve looked as uncomfortable as Vincent felt.

"They spoke of having a plan," she explained, "and of needing me for something. From the things Gaetano said to me, I believe they mean you harm."

"Us, who? Me personally? The WRO?"

"All of you." She said it too matter-of-factly. "Humans."

There was a long recorded silence.

"What can you tell me about this plan?"

"Nothing. He did not explain it to me, although it seemed to be happening soon. Or now. He did say to the others something about materia. It sounded important. Also, he spoke of going north."

"And he said he needed you."

"Yes. He did not explain why."

"What else?"

"Only that you have a – what would you call it? A breach in your security. Gaetano has information from inside your organization. And he once worked for Shinra, so I imagine he knows things that you would rather he did not."

"Where did he come from? We thought you were the last."

"He thought he was."

"I see."

Reeve then took more time, far too much of it, getting her to say the same things over again. She sounded very tired by the end; and in the recording Vincent could see that she was still wearing the clothes spattered with his blood and that they had not yet treated the bullet graze on her right arm.

What bothered him most about the interview was her attitude. Too detached, too casual, as though these things had happened to someone else. As though she had not been violently abducted. As though she was not talking about having just discovered a secret pocket of her people clinging to survival and having been torn forcibly away from them. As though they had not then fired on her. As though she was not now betraying them by reporting the incident in its entirety. Vincent knew, from what he had just seen in the cafeteria, that she _was_ deeply affected by whatever had happened to her in Condor. But as she described it all to Reeve, she sounded quite solidly like she didn't give any kind of a damn what happened to her people, or to the WRO, or even to herself. She had been remote before, all along, but this was different. This was reckless and rebellious and enraged under a slipping mask of nihilism.

His earlier realization, that there was no predicting her anymore, was hammered even deeper home. She had been right, in Mideel: she was losing control.

Vincent was still sitting at the operations console in the surveillance room, replaying the interview again, when Reeve found him. He looked exhausted.

"Ah, Vincent." He sounded exhausted too. "I thought you might be here. What do you make of that?" he asked, gesturing at the monitor.

Cramped from more than two hours spent with his neck craned over the screen, Vincent stood and paced a little to work the circulation back into his body. "I think we have a problem."

The Commissioner's scowl was deep and intense. "Shelke ran some kind of mathematical probability model through the database. I'm not sure how it worked, but she has already uncovered our mole. Two, actually." He sighed, shook his head. "We've got them in holding, but neither has given us anything yet."

Vincent nodded. Perhaps he would give it a try.

"Also," Reeve went on, "I have Yuffie out doing some legwork, getting whatever she can on this 'secure location.' We'll have something to go on in no time."

Hopefully not too late.

The man rather unluckily responsible for protecting the planet's interests sighed again and sank into the chair Vincent had vacated. "We have to tell her."

Vincent quirked an eyebrow, inviting further explanation even though he already knew what the other man was going to say. What he did not know yet was whether or not he agreed.

Reeve was distinctly unhappy, but he was all business now. "If this other Avadi really does have some horrible plot in motion, I'm going to want her help doing something about it. And it's not fair of me to ask, if we're not being honest with her about what she'd be up against."

"What good would it do?"

In terms of possible damage, Vincent was no longer certain anything could make things worse. He was willing to consider that he might be wrong about that too, but he felt that the argument was worth making, at least.

Reeve put his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers in front of his face. "None at all. This isn't about efficiency." He frowned. "I thought you were the one concerned about treating her with more respect."

_That was before she started coming apart at the seams and needing to be held together._ Vincent stopped pacing. "Reeve, before you think about asking her to get involved, you should know… she's not entirely stable."

The Commissioner smiled grimly. "I've known that from the beginning. It's good to know you've finally rejoined us in the real world."

Vincent stared at the other man, wondering why – if he knew – he would think about revealing sensitive information to such a volatile woman. If it was about wanting to test her loyalties before the coming conflict, surely it would be better for everyone involved to just keep her out of the whole thing.

He completely ignored the implication that he had been behaving foolishly, in almost exactly the way he was already ignoring the things Reno had said to him outside Fort Condor.

Reeve must have seen the question in his eyes. "Stable or not, whether she wants it to be or not, this is her fight as much as it is ours and she already _is_ involved. And she deserves to go in knowing what we know."

It was the truth. It was unfortunate, but it was the truth. Vincent did not like to imagine how she would take the news.

"I won't be the one to tell her," he informed Reeve, purely out of self-preservation.

His friend sighed. "I knew you were going to say that."

Vincent was not as offended as he might have been. At least _someone _was being predictable.

* * *

Around noon there was an epic crash in the lobby.

Vincent was more than mildly annoyed, when he got down there ready for action with gun in hand, to find that his excellent response time had been wasted on Yuffie's idea of a grand entrance. He eyed the scene grimly as a mailroom technician on the verge of tears tried to get her cart and its scattered contents under control while wrestling with the broken-down copy machine being wheeled out for repair and the weapons trolley she had somehow collided with. Yuffie hopped from foot-to-foot chirping an apology, watching the mess with more impish twinkle than guilt in her eyes. She grinned when she spotted the dark gunman.

"Heya, Vince. Miss me?"

He turned and started toward the command center. As he expected her to, Yuffie hurried to catch up.

"Aren't you going to ask if I got any dirt?"

He assessed her out of the corner of his eye. She was in a good mood, even by Yuffie standards, which meant her mission had borne some fruit. In fact, she had to have discovered something big, or complicated, or wildly unexpected. Yuffie thrived on the bizarre. She liked it even better when she knew something that no one else knew. If it was something freakishly strange, so much the better.

Vincent kept walking.

Yuffie danced out in front of him, walking backward, waving her arms in front of his face as though he was a particularly obstinate taxi cab clad in black leather and a hundred buckles. "Hey. You. Grumpy McSourpuss. Could you at least _look _at me while you're ignoring me?"

"I'm not ignoring you."

"No? Coulda fooled me. Whaddareya doin', then?"

"Waiting."

Yuffie almost tripped over the lip of the elevator, but still didn't turn to look where she was going. She stopped when her back touched the elevator wall, watching while Vincent got in and pushed the button. "Waiting for what, huh?"

He sighed as the elevator started to move. "For you to say whatever it is you're going to say whether I encourage you or not."

Yuffie punched him in the arm. "Jerk." Then she seemed to notice where she was. "So. Hey. Where are we going?"

"The command center."

"Awesome! I needed to see Reeve anyway. Big things are afoot, Vince. _Big Things_. I like that word. Afoot. Sounds important."

Vincent very patiently did not sigh again.

"You're really not going to ask?" She scowled, then grinned. The sudden change was disturbing and so very Yuffie. "Fine. Then I won't tell you how we're all about to die a horrible death. Cid is going to be so pissed at you."

"Cid?"

She waggled her eyebrows at him meaningfully. "Remember? He _told_ you he'd be pissed off if he found out you had let another end-of-the-world creep up on us. And here we are."

Vincent searched her face. Was she joking? He could almost never tell. "This is my fault?"

"Thought you weren't going to ask."

The sigh escaped him anyway.

Yuffie stuck her tongue out at him.

"You look stressed. Something on your mind, hotpants?"

It was obvious even as she asked the question that she didn't expect an answer, so he did not feel terribly guilty about the silence he gave back in response.

"On the outs with your crazy alien girlfriend?"

"She is not my girlfriend."

"Well played," she smirked. "I was expecting you to say _'She is not an alien.'_ Either that or _'The status of our interactions is no concern of yours, Yuffie.' _ Didn't call that one. Hm. Defensive much?"

This time he did ignore her.

The lift reached the fifth floor. For once Yuffie did not indulge in her rather alarming habit of jumping up and down inside the elevator for fun, and Vincent was glad. He always shook his head at her when she did, and she always laughed at him for it.

Reeve was in the command center, and so was Shelke. So, too, was Loríen, waiting silently in a corner, having obviously been told to stay close in case anything of importance should happen. Reeve looked relieved when he saw Yuffie.

The ninja spun her way across the room and planted herself squarely within Reeve's personal space.

"So, boss-man, you ain't gonna like this," she told him without any preamble.

The Commissioner rubbed at his temples and sank into the nearest chair with a let-me-have-it look on his tired face. "Thank Holy I wasn't expecting good news." He sighed. "Well, then, let's hear it. How is the world going to end this time?"


	21. Chapter 21

_**Chapter Twenty-One**_

**Reeve** had reports from all over Gaia, complaints of stolen materia. When Shelke finished running through her system diagnostics on the WRO mainframe, she discovered four large missiles mysteriously missing from a transport manifest – along with the necessary launch equipment. Vincent was the one who remembered how Shinra had planned to use the Huge Materia to supplement the effect of the explosives they had launched at Meteor. In the absence of Huge Materia, perhaps simply a huge _quantity_ of materia could be made to accomplish the same thing. But Yuffie's information was even more disturbing than that.

Gaetano's last job with Shinra, the one he had mentioned to Loríen, had been in the field of molecular biology. Specifically the study of viral structures and immunology. He had been the expert consultant on the Avadi Project who had failed despite a diligent effort to convert Loríen's disease-resistant DNA into the panacea his bosses wanted. People who had worked with him since then reported – under duress applied by a certain shuriken-wielding ninja – that lately his interest had been less focused on the search for cures and more on the production of potent designer hybrids tailored to target specific DNA structures.

The research, so his former partners confessed, had first been funded by Shinra as a potentially untraceable means of assassination, but more recently their work had been paid for by various small-time terrorist organizations looking to be the next big thing.

In spite of whatever flightiness or obnoxiously childish personality quirks one could legitimately complain of when talking about Yuffie, it could never be said that she did not know how to do her job when she felt like doing it. Adding what she came back with to Reeve's data and the information Vincent dragged out of Gaetano's spies – and Loríen's observations from her brief captivity – it all came together into a very grim picture.

And the note Gaetano sent to Loríen care of the WRO, in which he monologued as any proper villain ought to. That helped as well.

"What could the guy possibly have to say that he doesn't plan on saying with explosives and toxic gas?" Yuffie wondered as technicians scanned the small white envelope for micro-electronics and foreign substances. They knew it was from Gaetano because it said so, in big bold letters in the upper left corner where the return address should have been. Once it passed inspection, they handed it to the frowning Avadi woman.

"Perhaps he wishes to explain why he tried to kill me."

None of them had the heart to say anything in response to that. But after glancing at the writing on the back of the envelope, Loríen shook her head. "I cannot read this. These letters are strange to me." She passed it to Reeve.

He carefully removed the single-sheet letter and unfolded it with caution.

"_Yoink!"_

Yuffie snatched the page out of Reeve's grip before he could have a look and scanned it herself. Her eyes widened, and she hurriedly crammed the thing back into the Commissioner's hands. "Oh, nuh-uh. _So_ not gonna be me."

Reeve smoothed out the wrinkles and read it through silently, concluding with a sigh. They all watched him. "Anyone who wants to sit down for this," he summed up grimly, _not_ looking at Loríen, "now is the time."

No one moved. Vincent already had a good idea what had to be in the letter to put that particular look on his friend's face. Reeve cleared his throat and read aloud. His deep voice was soothing, if the words were not:

"_This communication will not be private, and so I must continue to hide certain things from you that I would much rather share. I hope you understand. _

"_I know you are angry with me for shooting at you and I feel like I owe you an explanation. It was nothing personal. In fact, I would do anything to protect you – and that is just what I was doing. I failed to keep you safe from the WRO, but I thought I could at least save you from being used as a weapon against your own people. It was a difficult moment and a difficult decision. I hope you will be able to forgive me. Our future depends on it._

"_I just wanted you to know that no matter what they do to you, you do have a choice. You do not have to stand with the enemy. They won't tell you the truth, because in the dark they can lead you blind, but you need to know: _

"_The children. Raver, Trigger, Smalls – all of them, all forty-nine, forty-six now that your Mr. Valentine has taken Bola and Swift and Medley from us – they are not simply the last hope for our people. They are _your_ children, Loríen. Shinra stole them from your body as you slept, grew them in a lab, raised them as killers. I rescued them, but they have never been mine. They are your children, and they have needed you. If you choose to stand with our human oppressors, you will be destroying not some vague un-realized future but your own flesh-and-blood._

"_I hope they let you see this. I hope they are not such cowards that they would force you to unknowingly slaughter your own family. Whether they do or not, and whatever happens now, I want you to know that I understand and that we will be waiting for you when the way is clear. Very soon now, all the doors will be opened, all the chains will be broken. The slate will be clean. The planet will be ours to rebuild._

"_On that day, we will be waiting for you with open arms."_

It wasn't signed.

Loríen changed her mind toward the end of the reading, folding herself abruptly into the nearest chair.

It was eerily quiet in the room after Reeve's voice died away, even the computers seeming to make less noise than usual as they hummed through their various tasks. Everyone, even Yuffie, seemed to understand the importance of letting Loríen be the one to talk first in the wake of that. And they all waited impatiently for her to arrive at whatever conclusion was inevitable. Vincent could not help but admire Reeve for reading exactly the words their enemy had sent, for not shrinking from the incriminations. It was absolutely not the way she should have been told the truth, but Reeve had accepted the situation with some grace.

Loríen's take on the matter was still uncertain. Vincent could hear that her heart was beating rapidly, a sick staccato. She drew several shallow breaths without speaking. Her already deathly-white face had gone a positively nauseated green.

"I knew," she finally croaked, horribly. Her eyes were closed. "I _knew_. I could not let myself believe, but I knew." She said something then in her language, something long and quiet and tormented; and even though Vincent could not understand the words, he knew what she meant.

Reeve cleared his throat. "I am… so sorry."

She stared into space, breathing harshly. She looked like she was literally going to be sick. "I… need… a moment. Please." Without waiting for a response, she stumbled to her feet and out of the room. From the look of things, to find a place in which to lose her most recent meal.

Silence reigned in the wake of her quick departure.

Yuffie was the one to break it, of course. "You guys knew, didn't you?" Her expressive grey eyes were like the sky over a troubled sea.

Reeve nodded, frowning. "We did."

"And you weren't going to tell her?" Her voice hitched upward on an incredulous, angry note.

Shelke sighed and turned away from the unfolding drama back toward her work terminal.

"As a matter of fact," Reeve answered, "I was. But there's no point in trying to convince anyone of that now."

Yuffie folded her arms across her narrow chest. "You are so busted."

Reeve looked at his shoes.

"So what else aren't you telling the rest of us?" she challenged, scowling. Vincent had seen the expression before; she was not playing. She cocked her head, including him in her indictment.

The Commissioner's frown deepened. "Until now, there has been no reason for any of this to be made public knowledge, Yuffie."

"Any of _this_?" The sudden slope of her delicate eyebrows was alarming. "Any of _what_, exactly? What's going on here?"

That was when it all came suddenly clear for Vincent. All the pieces, together in his mind. The mako-enhanced missiles, the secret society of half-Avadi and their abducting Loríen, Gaetano's work with designer viruses. The talk of revenge and a clean slate. It came to him, the whole picture.

"They're going to kill us all," he said, explaining it to Reeve. "Think about it. Gaetano is going to launch a deadly virus aimed at human DNA. He doesn't even have to fight a war to clear the way for this new world of his; all he has to do is sit back and wait. Then he can rebuild."

"My god."

Vincent braced himself, raising his head. "This is my mess to clean up," he told Reeve, ignoring Yuffie and Shelke and the rest of the command staff working diligently away at their terminals.

Several faces turned his way, displaying a range of reactions.

"What the hell?" Yuffie demanded, skipping several paces in his direction. "What kind of crap is this? _Your_ mess? How do you figure this one? Damn it, Vince, either you're really egotistical or really retarded. Not everything that's bad in the world is your frigging fault."

"No." Vincent frowned. "But this particular situation… my father created it." He paused to absorb her shock. "Like I said: my mess to clean up." He turned to leave.

The girl from Wutai followed him to the door. "And where do you think you're going, Captain Emo?"

It was Reeve who answered the question, hazarding a correct guess. "To squeeze Gaetano's insiders for more information."

Vincent nodded once, only half-looking back in Reeve's direction. "Four missiles. If Gaetano means to wipe out the human race, I'm guessing that means four launch sites spaced across the planet. And we're running out of time."

Yuffie tugged on his cloak. "Don't you want to be here when your girl gets back and tears Reeve a new one?"

He grunted. "I'm sure you'll tell me all about it."

She ducked around to the front of him and peered mischievously up into his face. "Afraid she's gonna let you have it too?"

As a matter of fact, Vincent was quite sure Loríen would have things to say to him, especially once she connected that his father was the one responsible for this. But escape was not his plan. He meant what he had said – if the end of the world was nigh, there was no time to be wasted wallowing in guilt. They had to figure out their game plan, before the game was over and they had all lost.

* * *

After letting herself panic for the better part of an hour in an isolated corner of the base, Loríen tried to grab onto some kind of calm. It wasn't working. She had thrown up; then, after cleaning her face, she had thrown up again. She felt hollow now, but that didn't stop her from believing she might heave again if she moved too quickly.

Her children. She had children. She had not felt particularly violated by Shinra before this – she had suffered far worse at other hands – but now she felt positively raped. They had reached into her body, stolen her future offspring, _forced_ her to reproduce. And then they did unspeakable things to those offspring, turning them into weapons or worse and predisposing them to hate mankind.

And this Gaetano. His plans for her could not be more obvious, or more distasteful, yet in some horrible way he was in the right. They were all that remained of their people; it was only logical that the two of them should procreate. Loríen felt like a traitor to her kind for caring less about logic and more about not being forced to do yet another thing against her will.

But he was a man who wanted to destroy, not build. She had met his kind before. She had fought his kind before. And then he had taken everything from her.

It was all just one big depressing circle, a story that would not end and wouldn't even flip to the next page. This battle was not new, these people were not new. The whole thing, all of it, was nothing but a reincarnation of the life she had already lived and failed at. She had already lost everything she loved standing up to a man, one of her own people, bent on revenge and the destruction of the human race. She had already made this decision, and had already seen not only how it turned out but what it cost. She had already _done_ this.

She couldn't do it again. She couldn't. She _couldn't_.

It was like a macrocosm of her days as a prisoner, repeatedly subjected to the same torture and then healed and then tortured again. Far more heat than she had earned for simply doing what she had thought was right. She had been an idealistic child just trying to save the world. This endless circle of punishment was entirely unfair, but that was beside any kind of point. Life, she had long ago realized, has nothing to do with justice. Life just _is_, and eventually everyone loses the game. You don't even get to chose the terms. Fairness, justice, harmony, happiness – they are man-made constructs with no place in the natural order. The only universal constant is suffering.

And, merciful Vaian, hadn't she suffered enough? When would it be _enough?_

So, what? Now she was supposed to take up arms against people that were her own children whether she wanted them to be or not? To stop a plan that was the last chance of her race's continued survival? In order to save a world she did not belong to?

What were the alternatives?

No matter how desperately she wanted to find a calm place within herself, to reclaim even a scrap of the flat stoicism that had been keeping her lucid since her awakening, she only ended up sliding into a deeper panic. She had no options here. None that weren't awful. And it simply hurt far too much.

Loríen wondered just how hard it would be to get past the security in the building. Did they have ways of detecting magic? It had been such a long time since she had tried anything, and she knew at heart that she was too weak now and lacked the concentration for it, but she allowed herself a brief fantasy of rendering herself invisible and just walking out. Walking away. Leaving it all behind and disappearing into the forgotten footnotes of history. However this played out, she wouldn't care, because she would be gone.

Of course she knew it could never happen. She was trapped in every sense of the word. Breathing was getting harder instead of easier. Her throat started convulsing in an odd but all-too-familiar dance – she was going to vomit again.

"Hey. Try to miss my boots, wouldya?"

It took Loríen a moment to register that someone was speaking, and that the words were meant for her. It took another moment before her vision stopped swimming enough for her to pinpoint the source of the voice: the petite black-haired woman who had once been Vincent's lover. Yuffie.

"Big stuff happening."

Loríen peered up at the intruder, bleary-eyed and queasy, from her refuge on the floor of the bathroom between two sinks.

"Sucks you were kidnapped," the younger woman added. "At least you weren't tied to the side of a mountain by a horny pervert in the middle of a sticky summer day while your friends decided whether or not they could forgive you long enough to cut you down or whether they ought to just leave you for the Turks." She shook her head fondly, lost in reminiscence.

Loríen did not want to know the story behind that. She forbade herself to even wonder what it was the girl's friends had needed to forgive her for. It didn't matter. She wanted the other woman to go away, but she couldn't find the words to make it happen. Her stomach flipped when she thought of having to speak. She stumbled upright only long enough to get herself to the nearest toilet. She made it just in time.

Yuffie waited until Loríen was done heaving. "You look like crap. Sound like crap, too. Guess you've had better news before."

Loríen flushed and staggered back to the sinks, where she cleaned her mouth as thoroughly as she could without making herself gag again. She stood there with both hands braced against the porcelain rim and stared into the mirror. Yuffie was right: she looked awful. In the reflection, she could see the other woman watching her, head cocked to one side.

"So, another Shinra lab rat, huh?" She made some kind of face Loríen could not quite interpret. "You and Vincent have more in common all the time."

If this was going to be about Vincent, Loríen did not think she could handle that right now. Not that she could really envision a conversation she _could_ handle at the moment. But Vincent, no. Too complicated a subject, too evocative of the baggage she was carrying around from her former life. With her present punching her so mercilessly in the gut right now, it was definitely not the time to try sorting any of that out.

"Holey crackers. You really are a mess," Yuffie decreed, as if she had been giving the matter some thought. "Emotionally. You know. I thought Vince was bad, but you're a freakin' _wreck_."

What could Loríen have said to that, even if she could make herself speak?

"I mean yeah, it's bad," the girl went on. She started pacing, just a short distance, but it was enough to make Loríen's head spin again if she tried to watch. "Evil test tube babies stolen from your ovaries trying to take over the world. That blows big wet banana chunks."

Loríen thought about laughing at the gross inadequacy of words to express the dire wrongness of this particular situation, but she knew it would only upset her already roiling stomach. She looked down at her hands; they were shaking badly. She closed her eyes and tried to speak. It seemed like the only possible way of making the girl leave her in peace. Unfortunately, nothing came out.

Yuffie sighed, a hyperbolic exaggeration of sound. "Seriously, you've got to pull yourself the fuck together. You know you've been hiding in here for like an hour? This isn't going to just go away if you keep your head stuffed down a toilet long enough."

Loríen's face was cold. A moment passed before she realized it was because she was crying. A breathless and unquestionably manic laugh escaped her. The other woman was right again: she was completely coming apart. She turned her back to the mirror and allowed herself to slide to the floor. Yuffie crouched beside her.

"I… just…" Only after the words came out of her mouth did Loríen realize they had been in the wrong language. She drew a deep breath and tried again. "I… cannot. This. I cannot… _do_ this. I have already… I have seen what happens. Not again. It is too much, and I cannot."

"Whoa, kid." The irony of being called _kid_ by Yuffie was not lost on Loríen, not even in her current state. "You're not making any sense. Like, _at all_. Just put down the loco weed for a second and get it together, babe."

Loríen concentrated on breathing for a minute. It didn't seem to be helping, because when she tried again her words still came out as an unintelligible jumble. This was it, she realized. She was losing it, finally, for good.

Then Yuffie slapped her in the face.

Not hard, really. Just an attention-getter, sharp and quick. But still, Yuffie _slapped her in the face_. Loríen blinked, her cheek stinging where the other woman's small hand had made contact. She was so stunned, so incredulous, that it actually took a moment for her to process the fact that a woman had just struck her and that she was in fact rather angry about it.

"Just what do you think you are–"

Yuffie cut her off breezily. "Oh look. You've suddenly remembered how to put whole thoughts together. Super."

Loríen glared. Her blood was pounding in her ears.

The younger woman rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. "Look. You've got some seriously awesome people willing to have your back. Cloud? May come off like a sexually confused army hairdresser, but he's actually an amazing friend and a hardcore badass and sort of a street-smarts genius and he's saved the world twice – helped a third time. (That one was Vinnie's.) And the others, they got _skillz_. Barret, seriously scary when he's pissed. And Tifa–" She stopped and whistled meaningfully, accompanying the sound with a single head shake. "But dude, you gotta do your part too. This one's sort of yours, you know?"

Yuffie stood abruptly, looking down. Loríen returned the stare, hating her but also reminded so very strongly in that moment of someone she had once held dear that the anger was tempered by a confusion of other, more subtle emotions. Having apparently said all she wanted to say, Yuffie nodded once – the gesture conveying stern judgment but also encouragement and support – and left Loríen alone with her thoughts once more.


	22. Chapter 22

**_Chapter Twenty-Two_**

**Back** in the day, in the glory years of Shinra and the Turks, this had been exactly the kind of thing Vincent had excelled at. Interrogation. His colleagues had called him all sorts of cutthroat nicknames that made him shudder now as he was forced to recall the tortures Loríen had undergone during her year-long ordeal. His heart was not in it, now. He was a monster who had made people suffer for the sake of a paycheck and a sense of professional pride. He was exactly the kind of devil that had destroyed the woman he could not put out of his mind.

He was good at it, though.

The first mole, the older of the two, had started singing almost as soon as Vincent came through the door. He had already provided them with a wealth of information regarding his history with the man who called himself Gaetano. All about how they had known one another when they had both worked for Shinra, and had kept in touch since then to share research; and how he still did favors for his old friend when asked, mainly just keeping him informed of what went on inside the organization. None of it had proven very useful, but at least he had offered it freely.

The second insider – younger, an idealist – was a tougher nut to crack. Even after Reeve took a shot with the questioning, he still wasn't admitting so much as a connection with Gaetano. He wasn't saying anything at all about missiles or information leakage. But Vincent knew how to do this, and he had years of training to his name. He started with the subtle psychological torments. Cold room, too much light, uneven chair legs, coffee to give him the need to pee, but no chance for a bathroom run; a long lonely wait during which to build up a healthy reserve of apprehension. Twice he sent security in to just stand against the wall and have a long smoke while staring at the guy, saying nothing at all. Vincent allowed the prisoner a good four hours of wondering what was going to happen to him before even stepping through the door.

By the time Vincent made his entrance, all metal and menace and inscrutable red demon eyes, the man in custody was showing visible signs of agitation he had managed to keep under control until now.

He was barely an adult, just an oversized child who had grown into his body too quickly to learn what to do with it. He had a lot of hair, a sparse blonde beard, and a magnified sense of his own intelligence. Vincent had met his kind before.

"You can't keep me here forever." The kid had wanted it to sound like a bold assertion, but there was just a hint of a question behind it after spending such a long time alone with his own imagination. "I haven't done anything." It was a lie, and a badly-delivered one. He forced an insolent smile and leaned onto the table.

Vincent walked slowly into the room. He picked up the table, dislodging the prisoner's elbows, and placed it in the corner. His subject was now exposed, nakedly alone in his chair in the middle of the room with nothing to hide behind. The younger man's blue eyes flickered with uncertainty. Vincent stood there looking down at the prisoner, the angle hiding all but his eyes behind the collar of his cloak. He did not blink. He did not speak.

"Does… does the Commissioner know you're here?" the young WRO technician squeaked, licking his lips nervously. "I'm pretty sure I can't be questioned without the presence of… of my supervisor, or legal counsel, or something."

Vincent reached down and grabbed the prisoner's collar, hauling him to his feet and then an inch off the ground.

"You can't do this," the technician gasped out, clearly with some difficulty breathing. "…excessive force. I have rights."

Vincent looked the man in the eyes. "What if the Commissioner _doesn't_ know I'm here?"

To that, understandably, the man had no ready response. His eyes were so wide with terror they looked like they might fall out of his skull.

"I have only one question," Vincent told him, "and you will answer it truthfully."

"I'm no traitor," the prisoner practically wept.

"Do you want to die?"

A whimper escaped the young man dangling within Vincent's grasp.

Vincent tightened his grip on the prisoner's collar, choking off just a little more of his air supply. "Thanks to you, there are four missiles ready to launch a deadly virus against the planet. There will be no survivors. I don't think you want to die." He dropped the young man back into his chair, where he sat gasping and wheezing and choking, hands at his throat.

"You will now tell me where to find those four missiles."

Tears leaked from the technician's eyes. He shook his head.

"If he promised that you would be safe," Vincent informed him, "it was a lie. But unless you talk, you won't be alive long enough to find out if I'm right."

"Y-you c-can't-t-t…"

Vincent had an interesting ability he had not shared with any of his friends since Omega. He had discovered it almost accidentally one day, working on the roof of his house, when the old shingles came loose and he started to fall what would have been a rather damaging distance. Apparently, even though Chaos had returned to the planet, Vincent's modified body retained the residual memory of the transformation. While he was no longer able to harness any of the demon's power or abilities or access any of its primal knowledge, he was still able to take the physical form. The discovery had saved him from a broken back that day, falling from the roof, as he found himself spreading a pair of tattered wings and floating harmlessly to the ground.

He chose to make use of this ability now. Stepping back only far enough to allow himself space for the transformation – not what the prisoner would have called a safe distance – Vincent concentrated on letting his body remember how to make the change. It happened, as always, with a horrible tearing sound and a searing agony in his joints. The pain did not fade as quickly now as it had when the demon had still been a part of him; he allowed himself to roar his hurt in the demon's voice.

He stepped closer to the man he was interrogating, wearing the shape of Chaos. "Tell me again," he growled with modified vocal cords, "what I cannot do."

The prisoner started to his feet so suddenly and clumsily he got tangled in the legs of his chair and ended up falling flat on his ass staring up at a monster that everyone knew should no longer exist. Vincent took one step closer, just one, and the man shrank away. With a wail of terror, he began to weep openly.

"I'll talk!" the technician blubbered, crabwalking desperately backward until he had himself pressed against the far wall. "I'll talk, I'll talk, I'll talk! Please don't kill me. I'll tell you whatever you want to know." Vincent saw then that he had soiled himself.

"The missiles."

The boy kept crying. "He didn't tell me what he needed them for. I swear. I didn't know anything about a virus or –"

"When this is over," Vincent interrupted in Chaos's eerily metallic tones, "you can try to convince me of that. For the moment, just tell me where he plans to launch the missiles from. All four locations."

"Oh god, you're going to kill me."

Vincent stretched his wings out as far as they would extend inside the interrogation room, a low rumble building inside his chest.

The prisoner's answer came out in one frantic breath: _"MythrilMinesForgottenCityRuinedTempleoftheAncient scavenortheastofCosmooooooo."_

"Thank you." Vincent smiled with deadly-sharp teeth. "You have been very helpful."

* * *

"**Please **tell me the security camera was malfunctioning ten minutes ago."

Vincent came to on his back in the hallway outside the interrogation room. Resuming his human form took considerably more out of him now that he did not have Chaos' strength to help him. He opened his eyes slowly, his vision blurry for a moment, taking in the presence of a vaguely Reeve-shaped figure hovering over him.

"Please tell me I did not just see what I think I saw."

Grunting, moving carefully, Vincent pushed himself into a sitting position. "I don't know what you're talking about."

The blur of Reeve's face resolved itself into a scowling white mask. "Damn it, Vincent. This isn't the time for games."

"No, it isn't. I have the information we need."

The Commissioner's scowl deepened. "I don't want to hear it until you've answered my question."

Being this exhausted always made Vincent feel belligerent and argumentative. "You haven't asked a question."

Reeve sighed gustily, conveying with the sound that if Vincent did not cooperate in the next handful of seconds, the outcome would be dire. "Just tell me you did _not_ transform into Chaos in there."

"I did not transform into Chaos in there."

"Now tell me what the hell _did _happen."

Vincent drew a careful breath. He would need to sleep again before the strain went away. "Intimidation. We needed to know what he did. Now we do. Would you rather I had beaten it out of him?" He levered himself cautiously to his feet, standing with one hand on the wall for support. His friend was watching him with manifest concern. "It wasn't Chaos."

Reeve swore again, shook his head, and angled his shoulder under Vincent's arm, offering himself as a crutch. "If we manage to come out of this alive," he muttered darkly, "you do realize there will be consequences for what you just did."

Vincent smiled grimly as they moved together back toward the command center. "There always are."

* * *

Cloud made it to Headquarters first, with Tifa, Fenrir roaring boldly into the assembly area. It took Cid a little longer, having to stop to collect the rest of the team and then cross an entire continent to get there. They were all together again, the whole group; and Cid had several choice things to say about the situation that had called them out of their homes on another hero's quest at a moment's notice.

"_What_ did I tell you? What the _fuck_ did I tell you?" He clenched his teeth furiously around his cigarette, waving a gloved fist in Vincent's face as he said his piece. "Don't fuckin' let the planet climb out onto another goddamn suicide ledge. T'sall I said. Just fuckin' keep shit from blowin' to high hell all over again. Is that too much to ask? Is that too _goddamn_ much to ask? You and fuckin' Reeve and the fuckin' WRO, you just can't help it can ya? Gotta go pissin' off another wacko with doomsday on the brain. Gotta go jammin' yer damn fists shoulder deep up trouble's asshole. Fuss-pot, meddling, self-important sons-of-bitches."

Tifa started wincing noticeably as the rant went on and only grew more foul, until even oblivious Cloud caught on and threatened to hurt Cid if he didn't shut his damn mouth. Yuffie, for her part, seemed impressed.

"Hey, geezer, I think you've learned a few since the last time I saw ya."

"He ain't shut up the whole way here," Barret groused. "Glad _someone_ wants to hear it."

They were all gathered in the command center, each of them waiting in his or her own particular manner for Reeve to appear and give them the full run-down. Cid was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, Yuffie sitting cross-legged on top of the desk where Shelke was trying to work, Nanaki curled quite comfortably on the floor next to a warm humming computer tower.

Barret had his arms folded across his large chest and was standing in the middle of the room looking a little lost and more than a little impatient to bash in some skulls. Tifa was sitting primly at one of the work stations, carefully flexing her fists, Cloud standing behind her with one hand on the back of her chair looking bored but attentive.

Loríen was quiet in a corner – head down, eyes closed, hands resting lightly on her knees, she looked like maybe she was meditating. Vincent was as far away from Cid as he could get, watching the others from the perimeter. Yuffie had asked him once why he chose to isolate himself like this, but he didn't see it that way. Observing was how he felt most involved.

One wall of the command center was taken up entirely by a screen dizzyingly crowded with a jumble of overlapping displays. Maps, satellite feeds, surveillance footage, blueprints, troop numbers. Other statistics that meant nothing to Vincent. A readout of the technical specifications of the particular missile they knew Gaetano had purloined from the WRO. He studied it, memorizing as much of it as made sense to him.

Reeve joined them eventually. He always looked so tired these days. Vincent wondered how much longer he would be able to do the job, holding the planet together. It was sometimes easy for Vincent to forget that his friends were getting older, but at other times he was all too aware. Then he realized he couldn't imagine Reeve _not_ doing the job as long as it needed to be done.

"You all made it," the Commissioner observed, relief coloring his stress-roughened baritone. "Excellent. I'm going to need all of you for this plan to work."

As if they were all sharing a single sudden thought, each and every face in that room turned at the same moment toward Loríen. She had her head up now, eyes open. She looked just as tired as Reeve; but where he was clearly being driven onward by dogged resolve, she seemed to be keeping herself together only with a sort of futile desperation. Even though she made herself return the attention steadily, it was obvious that she wanted nothing but to escape the room and the situation.

"So," Reeve murmured, voicing the thought in every mind, "where are you in all of this, Miss Raia? I will not pretend we don't need all the help we can get, but I think we would understand if you feel you can't trust us. We kept things from you, but I hope maybe you can see our reasons for that."

She nodded once, slowly. "Of course, it is more complicated than trust. And you cannot be certain of my loyalties."

Yuffie made a strange chirping sound of almost-disagreement but did not say anything. Vincent wanted to fix this, to know the right words that would get that horribly desolate look off of Loríen's face and make her want to help them, but he didn't. It was Reeve who continued the dialogue.

"I wouldn't have put it quite like that." He didn't argue, though.

Cid shook his head, scowling, clearly impatient with all the verbal dancing. "Look, are ya in or out?" he demanded, not quite at a yell but close to it.

Loríen looked at the airship pilot, then at each of them in turn – all of them except Vincent. Him, she passed over as if he was invisible. He did not know what to make of that, but he could not deny that it stung after everything they had been through.

"We are remnants, Gaetano and I," she finally answered quietly. She seemed to have been thinking about this. "Echoes of a world that breathed its last a long time ago. It is time for that world to be allowed to die." She sighed. There was nothing but fatalism in her voice and her posture and every sharp line of her face. "I will help you to stop him. It seems clear that this is the reason I am still here, and I am bound by duty to play my part."

Yuffie sighed loudly, in that way she had of conveying that the world was full of idiots who had no idea just how mentally deficient they really were.

Reeve looked like he was going to say something, but Shelke preempted him.

"Even if it means possibly causing harm to your offspring?"

The Avadi woman addressed her reply to Reeve, as though he had been the one who asked. "They are not mine. It does not matter where they came from, they have never been mine. I will not be made into the enemy's property over a question of sentimentality." She sounded so hollow. But if that was what she needed to tell herself–

Shelke nodded once, as though satisfied.

It wasn't just the children. Whatever had really happened to Loríen in that mountain, she was not taking it well. In fact, when this was over, Vincent suspected she was going to fall apart entirely. _If_ she made it through. He didn't think she intended to. She had made it pretty clear that, to her at least, this was a suicide mission. He could literally feel his hero complex – his need to save her from herself – eating away at him. He thought of Reno and he wanted to hit something.

Deeply disturbed but unable to do anything about it, he scowled and re-focused his attention onto the massive computer screen.

Reeve did not appear anything close to _happy_ with her answers, but he did seem content. He exhaled deeply, shook his head, and swept all of them with his gaze. "In that case, we'd better get started. You'll all need to be on your way within two hours. We don't have any more time to lose."

There was a vaguely mutinous murmur from the group, but no one objected outright.

"And, Miss Raia," he added tiredly, "I think it's time for a history lesson, if you don't mind. We need to know what we're really up against here."


	23. Chapter 23

_**Chapter Twenty-Three**_

**The** words sounded like the opening cadence of a very old bedtime story.

"From the beginning, relations between your people and mine have always been difficult."

It was strange to hear a person say something like that. _Your people_, referring to humans, definitely excluding herself. Vincent could tell from the shifting feet and averted eyes that he was not the only one who thought so.

"Humans have always been jealous of my kind," she went on softly, "and that jealousy has led to hatred. You have thought us arrogant, and spoiled. You have never been able to understand the price we pay for the gifts we were given. You have never understood that death is not a horror, but a blessing – one we have learned to envy. I think it was not avoidable, from the beginning, that we would fight each other through the ages until you had the world to yourselves."

Vincent could hardly believe what he was hearing: she was actually going to _talk_, to offer real explanations. They were finally going to be given something from the vast storehouse of all the truths she was hiding so desperately.

"Cut to it, whitey," Cid interrupted, lighting up a fresh cigarette with a bright flash of fire. "We don't have time for yer fuckin' philosophies. Just tell us how to beat this crazy bastard."

Damn him. Vincent clenched his clawed fist.

Loríen tilted her head, studying the airship pilot with faintly detectible traces of interest.

Barret fidgeted. "What can this guy do, anyway? Are we lookin' at summon powers? Can he bring flamin' pieces of sky crashin' down onto the planet?"

Reeve cleared his throat before Loríen could speak, seeing the look of confusion on her pale face. "We don't know anything about your people," he explained to her. "The Avadi. But from Shinra's research, it seems clear that you have certain… abilities. Can we assume that this Gaetano shares those abilities?"

Her body language was difficult to read. She made that strangely complicated gesture with her hands that was something like a shrug. "That is… like asking me if you can assume one of my people would have eyes that are green because mine are."

Was she being evasive? Vincent couldn't tell. He shifted, bringing himself forward just enough to remind everyone of his presence. He felt surprised eyes on him from all sides.

"Your magic is genetic?" It made sense; the scans of her tissue had shown natural organic mako in her system, fused with her cells.

"What magic?" Reeve asked quietly, a hint of accusation in his voice, the question aimed at Vincent and not at Loríen. There were a lot of things Vincent had not told him about the Avadi woman, and he sounded like perhaps he was coming to realize just how much.

"If 'genetic' means I was born with it, yes," Loríen replied, ignoring the tension between the two men. "Not all of us are. Were." She made that gesture again, or one similar to it.

"What can _you_ do?" It was Yuffie who asked, a practical question offered in a childishly excited manner.

This time when it took Loríen a while to answer, it seemed that she was struggling to find the words in their language. Eventually, she sighed and simplified. "Not much. I was never serious about my studies, and it has been a long time. I was best with healing magic, when I was… in practice."

That was not what Vincent had seen, in Mideel.

"That's it?" Barret did not bother to hide his disappointment.

Loríen shifted her eyes uncomfortably. "There was a time I could…"

She trailed off not to defer the question, but because she was focusing her concentration elsewhere. She stood and stared at the palm of her hand like she was trying to find something there in the crisscrossing lines, moving her lips silently. Without warning the air was split with a tearing, crackling sound. All the breathable air in the room seemed to rush inward, toward Loríen, and there in her hand danced a glowing ball of white-hot flame. Concentrating hard, she closed her fist and flung her hand outward, opening her fingers suddenly. The fire streamed from her fingertips as though she had thrown it like a baseball, slamming into the empty rolling desk chair she was aiming at. It was incinerated almost instantly, leaving behind a smoking, stinking puddle of melted plastic and bent metal.

Yuffie launched herself to her feet on top of Shelke's desk, one fist pumping the air excitedly. "Hell yeah! Like a level three Fire, but better. Sweet!"

The effort appeared to have taken something out of Loríen, because she almost literally fell back into her chair. "I have a few attacks of that kind, but not the strength to use them much, because I was never interested in training properly. I went into a fight once with a man far more powerful than I, thinking that because I had _right_ on my side I could not fail. He bested me easily, with skills I could not have imagined." She shook her head wearily. "_That_ was real magic. I was a fool, and it cost a good man his life. Magic is not my weapon."

So what was the story behind her insane magic spree in the jungles of Mideel? Vincent nearly asked, but decided against it. What had happened that day, he was still struggling to process and he suspected she was too. Even though it might be relevant to the current situation, he did not find himself quite able to be detached enough to bring it up in front of an audience.

"And so…" Reeve cleared his throat yet again, delicately choosing to ignore the personal revelation. "Gaetano may or may not have abilities like yours? You couldn't tell, while you were with him?"

Loríen pursed her lips. "If he does, it is doubtful he had anyone to teach him. That is not to suggest he is harmless. He is most definitely not that. He might be capable of anything."

Cloud cut in with an entirely unexpected line of questioning. "Why were you telling us those things about the hostility between humans and your people?"

Vincent watched Loríen's reaction to the question. She looked like she had been waiting for it.

"So you would understand that Gaetano is not a mindless killer," Loríen told the blonde swordsman. "This has been coming for as long as our two kinds have existed. For him, this is not murder for the sake of murder. It is about honor, and vengeance, and he does not believe he has a choice. You will not be able to talk your way to peace with him. At the end, it will be him or it will be you."

Cid spoke into the silence: "Shit, I coulda told you that for nuthin'. Now how's about we stop jackin' off and get down to the goddamn plan already?"

Nanaki lifted his head from the floor to fix the airship pilot with an annoyed glare from his good eye. "It _was_ a useful piece of insight, Cid. More useful than another one of your foul-mouthed tirades."

Cid flipped the flame-colored beast a rude gesture and took a long drag off his cigarette.

Shaking his head, Reeve made his way over to the enormous wall screen. "Right. If you're all ready." He operated a remote and four points lit up on the world map. "According to our information, these are the locations of the four launch sites. We can assume that there is active communication between them, and that if there is word that one of them has been compromised it is likely the other three will launch immediately. There might even be a failsafe. What we need to do is to divide into four groups and hit all four sites simultaneously."

Cloud was nodding, eyes on the map. "Do we know what kind of defenses we're looking at?"

Reeve gestured toward the blueprints being displayed on the monitor behind him. "I've sent UAVs to scan the areas. Gaetano has set up bases inside the Mythril Mines, within the foundations of what used to be the Temple of the Ancients, in a network of caves in the Cosmo Canyon Area, and at the Forgotten City. Each site is fortified against attack, guarded by a unit of his men. Stealth will be your only way in."

He fingered another sequence of buttons on his remote and a scrolling list came up. It took a moment for Vincent to figure out what he was looking at: vital statistics.

"Once we knew what we were looking for in the Shinra archives," Reeve explained, "we were able to find the hidden files on the Avadi Project. Forty-nine eggs survived implantation and the full gestational period. Those forty-nine genetically-modified children were placed into an intensive military and magic training program, and were developed into a unit of super-soldiers. Their strength and abilities are comparable to that of a SOLDIER, and they responded better than human subjects to the mako and JENOVA treatments."

"So, what, forty-nine Sephiroths?" Yuffie wondered, scowling in concentration. She jumped down from the desk and stood there with one hand on her hip. "_Hmph_. No big deal."

"More like forty-nine Clouds on his best day," Reeve corrected with an apologetic glance at their former leader. "And it's forty-six now."

"Piece of cake," she quipped with a saucy wink in Cloud's direction.

"So let me see if I have this," Tifa cut in. "You're going to send us out – in what, pairs? – to infiltrate four bases where we will be badly outnumbered by angry, human-hating SOLDIERs, in order to disable four deadly disease-carrying missiles at exactly the same moment or else face world annihilation?"

Reeve quirked his lips. "In a nutshell. After the threat has been neutralized, a WRO squad will be sent in to contain any surviving enemy soldiers."

Barret grunted.

"No problem," Cloud grinned. "Just like the old days."

"It's bugfuck crazy," Cid pronounced loudly. "I like it."

"The missiles have a computerized launch system," Shelke put in helpfully, "but they also have a manual override. Both will have to be disabled in order for the threat to be neutralized."

"This's gettin' too complicated," Barret grumbled. "Can't we just blow the bases sky high and call it a day?"

Nanaki growled quietly. "Only if you want to release the toxin into the atmosphere."

Cid snorted and jerked his head in Barret's direction. "Fuckin' talking gorilla. I'm tellin' you."

Vincent shook his head. It really _was_ just like "the old days" and he wished it would stop. According to the clock, they had already wasted fifteen minutes of their two hours – and they still had a lot of information to cover. He went back to studying the technical readouts of the missile he would have to disarm.

"That's enough," Cloud reprimanded unexpectedly, before Barret could explode over the insult. "Time to get serious, Cid."

Highwind folded his fists across his chest and subsided into an insolent slouch.

Vincent looked for Loríen and found her staring at the wall screen, watching the vital statistics of her forty-nine children scroll by. She looked like she was going to be sick, but she just stood there with her lips compressed and her eyes going slowly more dead with every passing line.

* * *

The mission briefing lasted the full two hours, at the end of which Reeve wished all of them good luck and sent them off to board the _Shera_ – except Cloud and Tifa, who would be taking Fenrir to the Mythril Mines. The rest of them were Cid's problem. Reeve found a sword for Loríen somewhere and held her back on the pretense of presenting it to her. In actuality, he had a lot of fatherly things to say about how they really wanted her to come back safely. She disregarded all of it.

When he finally let her go to join the others in the airship hangar, the energetic troublemaker from Wutai popped almost literally out of nowhere and danced across her path in the hallway.

"Hey." The girl said it with a wide grin, all kinds of meaning loaded into the one brief syllable.

Loríen nodded and continued on her way. Yuffie fell into step beside her. The need to get something off her mind was positively radiating from the very pores of her skin. Judging by her impulsive and outspoken nature and the bluntness of their last conversation, it would not be long in coming.

"This is it, huh?" Yuffie tested as they walked.

Another nod. Anything Loríen could have said on the subject would probably reveal just how well she was _not_ taking it, so she said nothing at all. They all thought she was a raving lunatic already – especially Yuffie.

"Reeve's got me with Barret," Yuffie half-complained, rolling her eyes dramatically. "At least _one_ of us knows how to sneak into a place."

There was a longer pause before the girl in the enormous thigh-high boots tried again, probably because she was working closer to the things she really needed to say. "So you're with Vincent. Hittin' the big base up north. Confronting The Man. Good times."

They got into the lift. Yuffie pressed the button, and they started heading down.

"Look, Vinnie's got issues," the younger woman blurted once they were moving.

Loríen sighed, but allowed the girl to continue.

"A freaking freight train full of issues," she went on. "Most of them are 'cause he's got some pretty screwed up ideas about what's right and fair and what his role in the world ought to be and how much he owes to the universe for his 'sins.' But the other half have to do with women. He's been messed up pretty bad by the ladies in his lifetime. I should know; I was the last one to do it to him. And, well, what I'm trying to say is, I love the big idiot and if you hurt him I'm going to have to jack you up."

Besides the fact that the petite grey-eyed girl was using colloquialisms Loríen did not recognize, she was not sure she followed the other woman's point. She cast her talkative companion an uncomprehending glance.

"Oh, geez. Freaking alien with your lack of slang." Yuffie waved her arms around in evident frustration. "Try this then: if you hurt him I'll break your goddamn kneecaps. Better?"

Oh. This was about Vincent's _feelings_. Loríen finally caught on to the fact after a moment of wondering why the girl – his former lover – would be making such a threat. It was difficult for her to remember now that other people thought about these things, when the ability to feel emotions the way a normal person should had been so utterly broken in her. When her attention was so narrowly focused on trying to keep herself together long enough to see this mission through. It was a struggle even to think of words that would reassure the other woman.

"I have no intention of hurting him," she finally said, as steadily as she could. "We are not… involved in that way."

Yuffie laughed long and loud. Her laugh was not pleasant on the ears, too brash and definitely full of mockery. They stepped out of the lift and kept walking. Yuffie's laughter went on a while longer.

"Bullshit," she finally pronounced. She jabbed a finger almost close enough to Loríen's face to put out an eye. "I've seen how he looks at you."

The urge to stop and take this girl by both shoulders and shake reality into her was very strong. Loríen kept walking instead, even picked up her pace. She had no idea where this conversation was coming from or how to take it, but she _did_ know she wanted it to be over.

"Whatever you are suggesting, I do not have romantic feelings for him."

The girl snorted. "Yeah. Three guesses what I have to say about that."

It was still some distance to hangar. There was no way Loríen was going to get out of this without having to come up with some response, and yet she stubbornly clung to her silence. The girl had no idea what she was talking about, no idea the kind of past Loríen was dragging around with her here preventing what Yuffie seemed to consider a natural but impossible relationship development.

When Loríen did not say anything, Yuffie rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. "Seriously. Besides. He's hot, you're hot. There has to be some sexual tension. Am I right?"

Loríen had never before been addressed so brazenly on the subject of physical intimacy. In general, she diverged from the expectations of her culture by preferring straight talk over opaque euphemism – but not about this. She felt her cheeks burning.

Yuffie threw her head back, sighing even louder and even more exaggeratedly. "Holy hand-grenades, it's like having a conversation with Vincent." She stuck her fingers into Loríen's face again, her eyebrows working up and down. "Lookee here, missy. I can see how desperately you're _not_ asking me why we're having this talk, so I'm gonna go ahead and tell you a little story."

No. Oh, no. Loríen did _not_ want to know what had gone wrong between Vincent and Yuffie. She did _not_ want to be drawn into more of these complicated interpersonal dramas, as though any of it mattered. She did not want to care.

"It is not my business what happened between you."

"Yes it is," Yuffie argued shortly. "Shut up and listen. So, right." She seemed to collect her thoughts. Loríen kept walking, hoping that maybe Yuffie would get distracted and leave it alone. No such luck.

"We were all couple-y for a few months after Cloud and Tifa's wedding and it was kind of awesome. He's a big old romantic. Did _not_ see that coming." Yuffie smiled hugely, showing a lot of very white teeth. "Things were going pretty great, I thought. And then, because like I said he's hot, and I'm hot" –she said this very matter-of-factly– "I thought what we really needed to do next was make sweet sweet love. Only, when I brought it up, it sort of came out that it was my first time and he went all _Vincent_ on me." Here her whole face started to turn downward. "Said it was a big deal and that I needed to be sure I was ready and did I really want him to be my first and he wouldn't even think about it until I was sure I was sure and if we were going to do it he needed me to make a real commitment because he wasn't _that guy_ any more."

She stopped and heaved a big, woeful sigh. They were passing a lot of people in the hallways, but that didn't seem to matter to the woman divulging the personal information.

"I freaked," the girl continued with a shrug, despite the fact that Loríen was doing her best to show no interest. "I don't do serious very well. And at the time, it felt like he was turning me down. I totally see now that he wasn't, at all. But at the time, yeah." Yuffie shook her head. "So I took off. I had this epically lame idea that I'd find some random guy and we'd _do it_ and then I'd go back and Vincent wouldn't have to worry about being my first anymore."

Even pretending not to care, Loríen could not help registering that that had been a colossally poor exercise of judgment. She was reminded again, strongly, of a certain person she had once been close to. The similarities were disconcerting.

Yuffie did not like this part of the story, that much was clear. But she pushed through it anyway. "Turns out, it _was_ a big deal. Only by the time I figured that out, I had really screwed things up big time. I couldn't go back to Vincent, so I just vanished for a while. And by the time I showed my face again, the door was absolutely positively closed _shut_." She frowned, a full-lipped childish pout, but her whole soul was in it.

"I hurt him pretty bad," she explained sadly. "This after that Lucrecia bitch pretty much tore his heart out and did a little Gongogan jig on it and then jammed it back into his chest dripping with lonely immortal monster juice; after Shalua got pounded into cybernetic motor-oil on his watch and he's been blaming himself for it ever since; after Aerith; after his mom. And then there's that girl in the Turks he never talks about–" She cut herself off, shaking her head as though to cast off the very idea of what she had been about to divulge.

Her tone when she resumed was decisive. "Point is, he's been through enough." It was a judgment and she offered it with certainty. "He may be a big scary bad-ass but we all worry about him and we're done seeing him get stabbed in the heart. Metaphorically." She stopped and giggled and added, alarmingly, "Literally, between you and me, it's actually a little cool to see him get stabbed in the heart; he gets _really_ pissed off. Seriously. You should check it out some time. But my point. 'Cause I totally have one. Don't fuck with his feelings. Or like I said, I'll drop you like an ugly baby."

Yuffie had talked so long that they were nearly to the airship hangar. It was several revelations too late, in Loríen's opinion. But she knew that if she could not give Yuffie whatever it was she wanted from this confrontation, the girl would only follow her until she was satisfied.

She considered for a moment. "I regret that he has suffered in that way, and I am truly sorry for the difficulties the two of you have had; but it has nothing to do with me," she told the younger woman. She meant it. It did not seem to be enough, because the girl was still watching her with troubled wide eyes. She sighed, accepting that she might just have to offer something more revealing even though she was uncomfortable doing so. "I am not…" She stopped, tried to decide how to say what she meant to say. "I am no longer capable of feeling these things. I believe you would say I 'have issues.'"

Yuffie snorted rudely. "Great. Another Vinnie. You two make an awesomely emotarded couple."

They had come to the hangar doors. Beyond this point, they would have an audience and Loríen had no intention of allowing anyone else to know what they had been discussing. She stopped and turned to offer her full attention to the woman so concerned with protecting a man she herself had already wounded deeply. "I do not believe I have misled him to think I harbor romantic aspirations," she assured Yuffie. "Tell me how else I am to avoid hurting him in the way you forbid?"

The tiny, energetic woman put one hand on her hip and regarded Loríen with great scorn. "Da Chao's flaming innards, that's weak. So. very. weak."

Loríen did her best not to be offended. She could accept that the woman's motives were benevolent, even if her manner was offensive; but being addressed in this way was an unpleasant novelty. "I know of no other way to reassure you."

Yuffie shook her head, threw her hands in the air, and punched the button on the wall next to the hangar doors. "Gawd, you're hopeless." She stalked through the open doorway muttering things in her own native language, leaving Loríen to wonder what had just happened between the two of them.

Loríen very carefully did _not_ allow herself to wonder whether or not she was telling the truth when she asserted that she did not think of Vincent in the way Yuffie seemed to believe she did.


	24. Chapter 24

_**Chapter Twenty-Four**_

**The** distracting novelty of actually _flying_, and in such a massive and complicated piece of metal, only lasted so long. After less than an hour in the air, Loríen was no longer able to hide from the fact that she was on her way to destroy her last living connection to the past. And that she was probably going to have to kill all that remained of her own kind – and her own children – to do it.

She wandered off to explore the airship, alone, trying to come to grips with what was happening.

At least, the idea was to be alone. No matter where she went, there were people. Crew members, technicians, Vincent's friends. They were all far too interested in her, too kind, too concerned. She wanted to be forgotten. When this was over, hopefully, she could have that. For now, she had to keep moving in order to escape the endless words of comfort and encouragement.

But this place, this ship, was almost impossible to navigate. And it was confusing – a flying stable for giant bird-steeds? Why such a thing was necessary in the middle of the sky…

Loríen came across the ship's hold, and was surprised to find that not even such a forgettable and forgotten place was unoccupied. The talking red leonine wolf creature was there, lying statue-like atop a pile of crates where it could keep the entire enormous storage room in sight. It turned its head at her arrival, studying her in silence while she stood there in the doorway deciding whether or not she needed to make an excuse before leaving.

"Hiding?" the creature eventually asked, its cultured accent taking her by surprise as it had every time she had heard it speak. It sounded amused.

He. Loríen corrected her thoughts deliberately. It was a he, and the others respected him, or so she had noticed. She could not pretend she did not find it odd that an animal was _speaking_ to her, but stranger things had certainly happened.

In any case, she saw no reason to dissemble. She nodded.

The beast with the flaming tail growled amiably. "I can't say I blame you. It's all a bit overwhelming, isn't it?"

It felt like a rhetorical question, so Loríen did not answer. She contemplated the best way to back out of the room before this turned into a real conversation.

"Personally," the creature added, lowering his head to his paws, "I always try to take a moment for quiet meditation before battle, if I can."

Relief flooded her: it was a dismissal. Courteously offered, but it was what it was. A part of her wanted to smile – a real smile, not a bitter one – but that part of her had been shoved into a corner for far too long, beaten into submission. Instead she inclined her head. "I will leave you to it, then."

She turned to go. A strange multi-tonal grating noise stopped her. Only after she looked over her shoulder at the reclining animal and saw the look it was leveling at her did she deduce that the sound had been the clearing of his throat.

"You'll want to find your hiding spot soon," the majestic creature advised, "_before_ Yuffie remembers what day it is."

* * *

"Hey, Cid, where do you keep the spare sheets around here?"

Both hands firmly gripping the helm, guiding the airship, Cid had to limit himself to a fierce scowl in Yuffie's direction. "How the hell should I know, kid? Do I look like some kinda frilly chambermaid?"

Yuffie was gone again before he could ask why she needed to know.

Ten minutes later, she was back again. "Okay. So. You got any paint on board this rust bucket?"

This time Vincent was concerned. Judging by the look on Barret's face – and the violent light in Cid's eyes – he was not the only one.

"If I did, I sure as shit wouldn't tell _you_ where to find it."

After vanishing yet again, Yuffie popped back onto the navigation deck in a handful of minutes. "I can't find any apples in the galley. Do you have them stashed in a secret apple-smuggling compartment somewhere?"

"What the fuck is your problem?"

"So that's a no?" Yuffie grinned alarmingly. "What about dry ice?"

The pilot was starting to turn red in the face. "Goddamn it, Yuffie, I'm tryin' to fly this thing. Go be a pain in someone else's ass for a while." He took a hand away from the helm long enough to wave it in Vincent's direction. "Hey, Vince, entertaining crazy broads is your new forte, right? Try takin' this one for a spin. I don't know what the hell she's up to, but I guaran-damn-tee we ain't gonna like it."

Vincent frowned. Where _was_ Loríen, now that Cid mentioned it? They had all been together on the bridge for a while, watching the landscape speed by beneath them, but now she was nowhere to be seen.

But Yuffie was shaking her head, that impish gleam still twinkling in her eyes. "Nope. Sorry, Vinnie. It's a surprise." She bounded away and through the doors before anyone could say anything.

A moment later, as they all tried to figure out just what she was doing while pretending they didn't care, Cait Sith – regrettably present in Reeve's place – burst into inexplicable laughter. The cat-robot shambled off after Yuffie, shaking his head gleefully and murmuring to himself, "It _is_ today, isn't it? Well, I suppose we could all do with one last laugh."

"What the –?" Barret wondered, arms folded stiffly across his massive chest.

Vincent frowned, thinking. He hadn't really been keeping track of the days since Loríen's abduction on the road home from Mideel, but that had been the 28th, which would mean that now–

"Oh, no."

"Well," Cid scowled. "Spill it."

"Today," Vincent said carefully, fighting panic, "is October thirty-first."

The other men were both silent, staring at him with blank incomprehension, until one of the younger crew members on deck blurted, "Halloween, Captain."

Barret took several alarmed steps in Cid's general direction. "Oh, _hell_ no!"

Stopping her really seemed like the best thing to do. Of course, she had already been at… whatever it was she was at, for more than an hour now. There was every likelihood that leaving the safety of the navigation deck would mean walking into a trap – a "trick," Yuffie would call it. Not that she would give any of them the option of "treat."

The pilot growled, shaking his head. "This one's all yours, buddy," he declared in Vincent's direction. "Go tell that psycho we got serious business goin' on here. No time for this little kid crap."

When Vincent was younger – an arrogant new Turk – he might have whined and demanded _Why me?_ Being older, and sort of wiser, he only sighed. On his way out, though, he did offer a piece of advice. "If there is any way you can get us to Yuffie's drop point faster–"

Cid grunted. "I'm on it."

* * *

All of Vincent's perceptions were on high alert as he stepped out into the hallway. Yuffie had probably left a few surprises in her wake – at least, it was just the sort of thing she shouldn't have done, so he could be reasonably certain that she _had_. Since she had passed this way only a moment ago, he concentrated on her lingering scent – cherry blossom and a hint of lemon. It brought back certain memories.

A part of him was hoping, as long as he was scouring the airship, to run into Loríen. They had things to settle before going into this mission as a team. There was a wall between them now, ever since Mideel – an awkward distance that threw into sharp relief the relative closeness they had developed _before_ things had gone from worse to catastrophic.

And as he thought that – as he realized that despite the moods and the sorrow and the way she stubbornly insisted on holding herself apart from the people who wanted to help her, from him, that he still missed her dry dark humor and the precision of her mind and the comfortable silences they sometimes shared at moments when they could feel how much of each other they were carrying around within themselves – As he thought that, really digesting it in her absence, he knew that Reno was wrong and that it _wasn't_ just physical and it _wasn't_ about guilt or a misguided need to make up for the past by saving everyone who might be remotely in need of it. Not entirely.

It was her, and it was him, and these were the beginnings of almost alarmingly normal feelings, that any man might feel for any woman he found as attractive and with whom he had so much – surprisingly – in common. He didn't want to save her because she was an ideal or some kind of penance, but because he genuinely enjoyed her company in spite of everything. And because she might possibly be the one to help him fight back the eternal loneliness he had been trying to accept was his lot. Whatever this had the potential to become, whatever it was now, it was real. All they needed was time. And for them to have that time, she needed to live. He did not think it was entirely selfish of him to want that.

Reno did have a point, but he was wrong.

The tangy, sweet scent of Yuffie led him through the many twisting passages of the _Shera_ down to the medical bay, but there he lost the trail. He stared up at the air vents in the ceiling, thinking – he knew she had a special fondness for navigating the ship through the air ducts where no one could see her. She said the air-sickness wasn't so bad in there, but that was probably just a line. More likely she found it easier to get up to her mischief using a transport mechanism no one else could follow. In today's case, she had probably realized she was being tailed and was trying to give him the slip.

Where, then, would she be likely to go? Whatever she was up to, she would have a central base of operations. It would be somewhere public, where they could not hope to avoid whatever it was she had in store for them. Since he could rule out the control deck, that left the conference room, the transport lounge, and the galley. His gut was telling him galley – more supplies there for her wrongdoing, resources she really should not be wasting but almost certainly was.

Before leaving, he had a quick look around. She had _definitely_ been here, he decided. He could not know what was missing, but it was obvious that someone had been rummaging untidily through the supply cabinets. He didn't want to have to lecture her, like he was her irritable grandfather and she no more than a misbehaving child, but if she had taken vital medical supplies then that was not the joke she thought it was. They were on their way into battle. He suspected she wouldn't be laughing if one of them died because the necessary medicines were nowhere to be found.

Because of the peculiar layout of the airship, it was a longer walk for him to the galley than the same trip would be for Yuffie in the air ducts. So he could expect that she would be there ahead of him, prepared to spring her trap. He wondered if it would be overreacting to cast a Barrier about himself before going forward. Best to save all his energy for the real fight ahead of him, he decided. But still.

He was just concluding this line of thought – and had not run into Loríen – as he approached the metal sliding doors to the ship's rather large food prep and dining area. Something was odd, something smelled different. Water. From above. He could smell–

Just as Vincent looked up to trace the unexplained scent of fresh water, there was a clank and a whooshing sound andhe experienced a sudden, unpleasant, _cold_, wet slap to his face. A bucket of water, over the door. Yuffie had rigged a bucket of water. And had just soaked Vincent through his leathers down to the skin.

* * *

"Oh, hey there. Whatcha doing?"

Loríen did not have to open her eyes to know she had been found by the very person she had been warned to avoid. She drew a deep breath, trying to keep her body in the relaxed posture she had finally managed to attain.

The other woman leaned audibly closer. "Meditating?"

Allowing a nod of confirmation although she did not know the word, Loríen drew another breath and let it out slowly. Good luck would be her only savior now.

"Hm." Yuffie paused. "Strange place for it."

This had actually been an incredibly difficult hiding spot to come by, every other area of the airship seemingly subject to an endless stream of traffic. Loríen could not imagine that the crew often had cause to visit this tiny closet that seemed to hold nothing but spare raincoats and electric torches.

Yuffie rummaged on the shelf above Loríen's head, letting out a crow of triumph when she found whatever it was she was looking for. But, having found it, she did not close the door again. "Meditating's all right, I guess. Sometimes. But if you're trying to relax, I think what you really need is a good laugh."

Loríen shook her head. "Thank you, but no."

She wasn't exactly surprised when she felt the younger woman grab hold of her arm, trying to pull her to her feet, but it was still unpleasant. Her eyes flew open against her will, revealing a view of Yuffie, haloed deceptively by the light from the hallway, leaning forward to grin into Loríen's face.

"C'mon. I've got some irons in the fire, so to speak. You can help me get this bitch going."

Even if she had any idea what Yuffie was talking about, Loríen felt quite certain she would still be turning down the offer. Something untoward was _definitely_ in the works here. She shook her head again, attempting to retrieve her arm. "No. With respect. I prefer my own methods of preparing for battle, if you please."

The girl frowned disapprovingly. "Bah. Your _methods_ seem about as useful as a snake's running shoes. Besides, today is a major holiday. Perfect time for you to start integrating into the culture of now. Plus, all those other chuckleheads forgot. They need to be taught a lesson about holiday spirit." She sounded almost sinister as she said that last.

There were so many things wrong with what Yuffie had just said, Loríen did not even know where or how to begin enumerating them. She could feel her heartbeat accelerating on an approach to panic as she tried to formulate a response. Suddenly, Yuffie was shoving something into her hands.

"Here. You carry this. We need to make another stop before heading back to the Staging Area." And with that, she turned her back and walked away, displaying firm confidence that Loríen would be following directly behind.

Loríen sighed, spent two whole seconds considering what would happen if she tried to stay where she was, then pushed herself to her feet and went after her small but strong-willed companion.

It soon became clear that Yuffie had not been joking when she said she had a plan in motion. It was also clear that the plan was a bad one. Loríen did not see how to distance herself at this point. She simply had to brace herself for the reality that this was going to go very wrong, very quickly, the moment any one of their companions stumbled into Yuffie's "party."

"It's called 'Halloween'," the girl from Wutai explained helpfully as she splashed red paint all over the ship's galley. Loríen found herself flinching. Cid, the ship's owner, would _not_ be pleased when he saw this. "You dress up in costumes and go from house to house making people give you candy. Best holiday ever. A long time ago I guess it used to have something to do with scaring away unquiet spirits in the Lifestream, or some superstition about keeping WEAPONs away, but these days it's all just about the costumes and the sugar."

Not unlike Autumn Festival for her people, Loríen mused. For three nights and two days, her people would hide their repressions behind beautiful masks and under cover of anonymity would engage in all the activities they would never allow themselves during the regular course of the year. Once, in the beginning, the festival had been a spiritual event. A collective offering of gratitude to their maker for a world full of so much beauty and plenty. But it had soon devolved into a celebration of senseless hedonism.

Still, Loríen had some pleasant memories of Autumn Festivals passed.

"Maybe we can get Vincent to 'dress up'," Yuffie mused while she worked. "For my money, Hellmasker is by far the scariest of his mental houseguests." She shuddered at some memory. "Although Chaos was pretty badass."

Loríen really did not want to ask, but she heard the words leaving her mouth anyway: "You are speaking of the creatures inside him?" She had found herself unable to completely shake the memory of Vincent as a slavering horned demon, covered in blood not entirely his own. There was something terrifying about just knowing what lurked behind the coolly composed surface of the man. Or really, _not_ knowing, but having had the faintest glimpse that there was a dark violence in him he kept so entirely hidden behind those hurt-filled eyes and that perfect, pale mask.

Yuffie nodded once. "Yup. Saw one, didya? I know, it creeped the hell out of me the first time, too. Of course, back then, he wasn't really in control of them and they did some _wrong_ stuff any time they had him shoved into a box in his own head. But he's the boss now. Only lets them out when he wants to, and they have to play by his rules."

Loríen wondered how true that was.

After the paint, Yuffie spent some time shredding sheets literally into threads, which she then hung from the walls and ceilings.

"Not very convincing cobwebs," the mastermind lamented. "But we'll do something about the ambience in a minute."

As a matter of fact, Yuffie had amassed quite an assortment of candles and handheld lights, which she placed almost at random around the spacious room. Then she turned out all the lights. She produced a giant metal tub from one of her supply-gathering forays, and filled it with water. After that, she spent a while complaining about the lack of apples, as if that made any sense. Eventually, mumbling in her native language, she found a small stash of tomatoes hiding somewhere; she threw these into the tub.

Then she went to work on her _pièce de résistance_.

"See, the idea of Halloween is to be scary," Yuffie continued to explain. "Scary costumes, scary decorations. But if you're not into scary, the other thing to do is funny. Me, I'm going both ways." She laughed for a moment at her own brilliance.

Loríen watched with mounting unease as Yuffie built her most important prop. What the energetic younger woman seemed to be creating, with supplies stolen from the medical bay, looked to Loríen's eye quite a lot like… like…

Like the table where she had suffered torments of the most extreme kind at the hands of what her captor had liked to call "professionals."

All the calm Loríen had managed to attain with her solitude and her meditations seemed to drop right through the bottom of her stomach.

"We still need to figure out a costume for you," Yuffie said cheerily as she worked. "I've got mine all set. Maybe we could find a really short skirt and a pair of fighting gloves and you could be Tifa." She finished laying out her cruel-looking mixture of surgical and culinary tools on the tray next to her makeshift table, then turned to regard Loríen with a critical eye. "Nah. Not much fun in that. And you don't have the boobs to sell it. Let's see. Hang on. One more trip."

She disappeared into the hallway again and was gone for a while this time. When she came back, she had another armful of purloined goods which she dumped into a pile in the middle of the kitchen. "So. Let's see what we've got here…"

The door opened, which was surprising given the traps Yuffie had laid, and the creepy mechanical cat thing came bouncing into the galley.

"Oh. It's you." Yuffie sounded both relieved and disappointed.

"I'm here to help, here to help," the strange creature replied brightly. "Though it looks like you've got things well in hand."

"We're trying to figure out Loríen's costume," Yuffie replied.

Loríen thought about arguing that they were doing no such thing, but she was trying too hard not to be sick at the sight of Yuffie's mini torture chamber.

"What about yours, lass?" the cat thing asked.

Loríen turned her back to the scene and closed her eyes, trying to calm herself.

"Mine is so fantastically perfect I can hardly see straight," Yuffie boasted with enthusiasm. "Although maybe that's these glasses I stole off a guy in the engine room. I got the idea when I saw this lab coat. Look." There was quite a lot of noise of shuffling fabrics. "Ta-da!"

The cat was silent for a moment. "Is that… Are you who I think you are?"

"Dead ringer, huh?" Yuffie said proudly. "Only, I'm going to play him gayer than a paralytic walrus on helium and pain meds at a pretty princess tea party."

"Hahahahahaha! Priceless."

The two of them giggled at each other for a while. Loríen ignored them to the best of her ability. She actually found thinking about Autumn Festival to be a useful distraction. Oh, she had done some stupid, _stupid_ things that last year, just before officially becoming an adult. Things she could not entirely remember, even now. At least all the people she had embarrassed herself so awfully with were no longer around to tell the tale.

Quite suddenly, there was a crash in the hallway outside the galley, followed by an animal roar of fury just like the cry of the beast at the mountain base.

From the warm tone of her voice, Yuffie was smiling. "Heh. Sounds like Vin-vin has come to save the day."

Loríen abruptly did not want to be where she was. Did not want to be involved in whatever this was about to be. But the only way out, at this point, was past Vincent. Who did not sound at all pleased. She turned to see her two companions bracing themselves for the dark gunman's arrival.

"Bugger," the mechanical cat said in her direction. "You've still not got a costume."

"Damn," Yuffie seconded. She looked very strange indeed in her chosen get-up, which seemed to involve a pitch-stained rag mop on top of her head as well as a ridiculous pair of glasses and a white doctor's coat.

The cat spotted something and brightened. "Here," he declared. "Put this on." Without waiting for Loríen to respond, he lunged at her with a red-painted sheet in his tiny hands. The paint still appeared to be wet.

"No. Please." Loríen tried to dodge out of the way before the wet red paint touched her clothes, but she was standing too close to the low metal table and ended up half-falling onto it as the talking cat wrapped her in the ruined sheet.

At that moment, the door slid open and a thoroughly wet Vincent stood there looking deeply, violently aggrieved. His intense red eyes slid over the scene, his expression growing positively stony as he took it all in. He had just found Loríen, staggering away from the torture table wrapped in a bloody-looking sheet, and was regarding her with hurt shock turning quickly to rage, when Yuffie sashayed up into his personal space.

"Well hel-_lo_ there, _boy_," she fluted, flicking her wrists. "I've been waiting for a _fine_ specimen like you all _day_."

Vincent's head swiveled slowly in Yuffie's direction, as though he was so stunned he did not have full control of his own movements. "Are… are you…? Yuffie, you can't really… Is that…?"

"That's _right_, Vinnie _ba_-by!" Yuffie simpered in that strange, high, croaky voice she had adopted for the role. She flopped around Vincent's astounded-motionless form with limp wrists. "It's me! _Ho_-jo! And you've been a _bad_ little Turk, haven't you?"

"I… I… You…"

Loríen had never before seen Vincent – always so collected, so in control – this horribly uncomfortable and lost for words. It was mesmerizing, in a truly awful way.

Yuffie was fully immersed in the role now, the mechanical cat snickering appreciatively at Loríen's side. The girl in the terrible black mop-wig flounced effeminately. "You never _were_ much of a talker, were you, _boy_? But you're just so del-_ic_-ious, I don't mind." She wriggled her eyebrows in Vincent's face and raised a hand to squeeze his bicep. "Mmm, _yes_. Such a fine, _fine_ specimen. I've always been _gay_ for you – couldn't you _tell_? With all the giggling and the pent-up _sexual_ _frustration_?"

"_Oh my god,"_ the cat choked out, laughing so hard it was surely about to malfunction.

"Yuffie…" Vincent tried.

"I _told_ you, it's _Ho_-jo," Yuffie minced. "Haven't you _missed_ me, My Little _Val­_-entine? I just can't stop thinking about those pretty _eyes_ of yours. And that tight little _ass_. I'm sorry. That's not the proper medical term. _But_-tocks." The girl grabbed him by the front of his cloak and turned to drag him over to her prop. "Let's get you up on this table and do some _luuuuuv_ experiments on you, _big_ boy!" Then, all at once, she noticed Loríen and the cat standing on the other side of the table, and the mischief went right out of her face. "Holy _shit_, guys. Are you freaking _kidding_ me?"

Loríen had absolutely no idea what was going on, and did not know how to respond. The cat, however, looked at Loríen and seemed to register something far, far too late.

"Oh, I, uh…" He smiled disarmingly at Yuffie, then at Vincent. "No offense?"

Vincent growled wordlessly and stormed out of the galley with a swirl of his red cloak, angrier than Loríen had ever seen him.

Yuffie shook her head, attempting a serious look despite the ridiculousness of her costume and her behavior of a moment earlier. "Seriously. Loríen. Not cool. _What_ did I just say to you, right before we got on the em-effing ship?"

It took a moment, glancing down at her paint-stained clothes and the sheet still tangled partially about her body, to figure out what the hell had everyone so serious. When it came to her, though, Loríen felt as though she had just been punched in the chest. Or as though she had just punched Vincent in the chest.

Oh, yes. Things were going to be _so_ much less awkward between her and Vincent now when they had to infiltrate the enemy's base together.

She wanted to cry, but settled for kicking the cat robot instead.


	25. Chapter 25

_**Chapter Twenty-Five**_

"**Vincent!"**

He ignored the call and the person following him down the hallway, determined to find an isolated spot in which to be very, very angry for a while.

It was not so much Yuffie he was angry at, he was able to admit as he stormed away from the scene of the incident. He expected no different from her, and he knew she meant no harm. In fact, if he was any judge of her thought processes after all the time they had known one another, she had probably thought she was commiserating with him in some odd way by mocking the man who had done such unspeakable things to him.

No, it was Loríen he found himself clenching his jaw over. She knew better, knew what it was like because she had been through the same kind of horror. That she could mock him and his past and his concern for her so callously… She knew better. But then, she hadn't exactly been treating him with the greatest of respect from the beginning. With all that he had done for her and _tried_ to do, she had been and remained frustratingly cold and at times downright condescending. And her excuse was what? She blamed him for looking like someone she had loved and lost? Bullshit.

"Wait up, jackass! I'll only hunt you down if you don't."

_God._ Sighing shortly, he slowed his pace until Yuffie had caught up to him.

"So. Um." In terms of opening sallies, Yuffie had definitely managed better.

Vincent cast her a fiery red glare out of the corner of his eye.

Yuffie snorted. "Don't give me that look."

He made an effort not to sigh again. "What look should I be giving you, Yuffie?"

She shook her head, hopping to keep pace with his long-legged strides. "We were just having a good time. Once you've cooled down, you'll see how funny it was."

Funny. Of course she would think so. "Right."

Yuffie grabbed a fistful of his cloak and yanked hard enough that he nearly tripped. "Come on. Gay Hojo?" She laughed at herself. "Don't tell me that wasn't gold."

Vincent drew a deep breath. "And pretending to cut up Loríen on a lab table; that was gold, too?"

"Psh." Her facial expression would probably have been comical if he had been in the correct frame of mind to see it that way. "That was totally an accident. Which is why you need to chill out."

He slowed to a stop and turned to face her. "…an accident?"

It hit him. Like a ridiculously stereotypical revelation on the road to someplace or other. As he stalked the hallway with Yuffie beside him laughingly and unapologetically demanding that he accept how easy it was for her to hurt him, he saw – clearly, as if laid out for him in a neat sequence of snapshots on a bulletin board for his review – the history of his relationships with women ever since his mother died. The girl in the Turks who dumped him after using him to help her pass her marksmanship exams, the painfully off-limits Lucrecia Crescent, Yuffie and her playful disrespect, and now Loríen…

All his life, he had been letting women walk all over him, doing as they pleased with him and to him. Using him. Hurting him. They had treated him like their willing slave and whipping-boy, and he had allowed it, because on some level he had always felt he deserved it. Because he felt, in his soul, that he had failed his mother when she needed him most and that although he could never truly pay the price for that, he had to spend the rest of his life trying. And the more they used him, the more he felt he owed to them. When things went sour, as they always did, he would shoulder the blame and the guilt and he would elevate these women in his memory to keep them above the taint of their own failures.

But that was wrong. Seeing it all clearly in his mind, suddenly, he grasped that it was wrong. Not only did he see, now that he was no longer a grieving child trying too soon to manage in the harsh reality of the adult world, that he was not in fact responsible for his mother's death and had nothing to be sorry for; not only did he see that he did not deserve any of the suffering he had forced himself to endure for the sake of _penance_; but he saw that he had done these women a disservice as well. By absorbing their failures onto himself, he had never allowed them to take responsibility for their own lives, their own mistakes. And remembering them on their golden pedestals, he was taking away from them even the courtesy of regarding them as fully human, flawed. He understood now how much it meant to be human.

He realized that loving these women did not mean he had to accept them, accept their mistakes, accept the ways they had hurt him. He could love them, love their memories, but acknowledge that they had done him wrong, and it would in no way constitute a failure on his part. He had done his part – he had _always_ done his part, and then above and beyond – but sometimes it just wasn't enough, because it wasn't just his story but theirs too and they had their own choices to make.

Sometimes… sometimes people choose not to be saved. Choose not to be good, or fair, or happy, or kind. Sometimes they die. And never had any of those things happened because Vincent had not loved the people in his life enough. But for years – since he had been a sixteen-year-old boy whose mother had just died of a terrible wasting illness, standing beneath an ornate crystal chandelier shouting heart-broken imprecations at his equally heart-broken father – he had been telling himself they had.

The epiphany hit him so hard he nearly couldn't breathe.

Yuffie…

She was staunchly keeping pace with him, head craned awkwardly so she could stare into his face as she no doubt attempted to figure out what had kept him silent for so long. She loved him; she had always loved him. He knew that. She had also, always, been an enormous pain and a brat and had seemed to believe she could do as she pleased with him. Her big, heart-sore, world-weary, dangerous-but-ultimately-harmless plaything. He had let her.

Yuffie, for her part, seemed determined to shatter the mood of his sudden revelation. "You don't believe me?" she demanded, voice skirling upward on a note of pretended hurt. "When have I ever lied to you?"

He almost, _almost_ felt like laughing at that, given everything. Instead, he managed to maintain a perfect lack of expression. Actually, he still wanted to find a quiet place to be alone with his thoughts, but now he found his father coming to mind. They had both behaved foolishly for love, to great negative effect. Vincent understood that now better than ever. He found himself thinking just how grossly unfair he had been to the man and how much he wished they had managed any kind of connection while they'd still had the chance. At least he no longer hated his father, and that was a start.

"Okay, fine," Yuffie huffed. "Be like that. But remember, I _tried_ to apologize."

As a matter of fact, Vincent could not recall a single word of apology having been uttered. More classic Yuffie. He shook his head at her, annoyed and angry and loving her more than ever and finally accepting her rudeness for what it was instead of telling himself he deserved it.

She sniffed with great offended dignity and stormed off down the hall, back in the direction she had come from.

"No," he murmured at her retreating back. "You didn't. You never do."

But he would forgive her anyway.

"Oh, and by the way," her voice floated back at him, "if you see Barret or Red, could you tell them to come by the galley? I've got a surprise for them."

* * *

Cid dropped Yuffie and Barret several clicks off from their target on the island, with any luck beyond the range of their enemy's sensors. Things calmed down on the airship quite a lot once the girl was gone, which made for a quiet flight to the Cosmo area.

After his temper had cooled, Vincent considered having a few stern words with Cait Sith before the animatron disembarked, but eventually decided it would be more productive to have a talk with Reeve about his robot's programming. So, Cait and Nanaki went in to deal with the base in the caves. With Cloud and Tifa already waiting a safe distance from the Mythril Mines until the others were in place, that left Vincent and Loríen alone on the ship, along with their foul-mouthed pilot, to make their way north.

Cid kept the ship in the air while they made the jump, then pulled back to avoid detection. The plan was for him to set down closer to Bone Village's radio towers, where he'd have the best signal, and wait for any possible emergency calls. Despite the fact that Loríen had never been on an airship before – much less parachuted out of one – she managed that part of the operation with very little fuss. Vincent thought she might even have been trying to conceal a little surprised enjoyment after they hit the ground, as they detached their cables and shucked their backpacks. Seeing some life burning finally behind those bright green eyes brought a return of the old desire, as strong as those early days when Vincent had still been stunned beyond reason by the utterly inhuman quality of her beauty.

And it was not that he was continuing to make excuses for her in his mind, fixing or explaining away her flaws and blaming himself for her failure to find healing. He understood clearly now that she was out of her mind, irreparably emotionally damaged, and a cold bitch. But, somehow, none of that made her any less alluring. In fact, Vincent thought he understood now exactly what Reno had meant by "scary hot."

Not that this was in any way the right time to be dwelling on that.

He waited while the backup troops and hazmat disposal team disembarked and assembled, then gave them their orders and started the hike through the Sleeping Forest to the City of the Ancients with Loríen by his side.

* * *

It was a long walk, but the scenery was beautiful. At first, Loríen tried to pretend that she did not think so, or that it did not matter; but the fact was that as they waded deeper into the incandescent forest, she found herself relieved that there was still such beauty in the world. She found herself – if she was honest about it – reminded of her home, and somehow the similarity was not entirely painful.

On that thought, she glanced at Vincent involuntarily out of the corner of her eye. He was forging ahead with that intense focus that was his way, solid and competent and dangerous and a number of other adjectives that applied to him somehow entirely unlike the way those same things had appeared in Naoise. There were differences too, of course, that she had seen in the last few days especially. In fact, now that she had known him long enough to see past the eerie physical resemblance, she felt that drawing comparisons between the two men was a belabored reach.

Vincent Valentine was completely unlike anyone else she had ever met. Not human, although he had been once. Still making himself pay for that. Another man would be seeking his revenge against the world, but not Vincent.

Despite the darkness he radiated and the weight of guilt that kept his head perpetually bowed, his shoulders strained; despite the harsh, unforgiving red of his eyes; despite the constantly unhappy downturn of his lips, there was a basic honest goodness about him. A kind of tortured nobility. Not the sort a man is born with, but the sort hard-won through grief and suffering and walking the bitter path through failure to redemption.

And he had clearly suffered. Even before she had known anything else about him, she could see that much. That he had suffered deeply, more than a person should have to.

There had been a time in her life when she would have cared. When her heart would have gone out to him, for his grievous hardships and for the refining fires his soul had survived. A part of her _wanted_ to care. As much as she had tried all along to ignore him, he was impossible to ignore.

Compelling, that was the word. Something about him compelled attention, and respect, and fear. The others felt it too, she had seen. No matter how desperately he wanted to disappear into the shadows of the background, his was a presence that commanded a reaction. It wasn't always a good reaction, but no one could help responding to him in some way.

That, she realized suddenly, was what made her so angry in his company. She was just working her way through the rest of that thought, trying to figure it out, when his voice interrupted her.

"Tell me why it is you won't look at me _now_."

The demand was so strangely relevant to her present musings that she wondered briefly if he had telepathic abilities she did not know about. Probably not. He sounded irate, but whether he was still upset over the incident on the airship or for some other reason entirely, she was not qualified to guess. She was still feeling pretty guilty about the whole scene; he almost certainly believed she had been mocking him, making light of his past. She had not meant any such thing.

But as for his current inquiry… she did not know what to tell him. Yes, it was true that she found it difficult to look at him and that she had been trying not to. It was also true that her reasons had shifted since her first days awake – now it was even more complicated. She thought of Yuffie, of the girl's warning. _He has been through enough._

When she took too long to answer, he went on in that same soft but angry tone like singed black velvet. "I know we've had some tense moments, and you may think I'm cruel, but I deserve more than this from you."

He was definitely cross about something more than the misunderstanding on the airborne vessel.

Loríen _had_ been ignoring him, when she had not been actively trying to build a wall between herself and all of these people and their concern. She simply could not afford to be involved, to be invested. Not again. She considered what to say to him. As sorry as she felt about the way she had been treating him, the only purpose of apologies and assurances is to try to bridge the distances between people, and she could not bring herself to do that.

Still. They had this task to accomplish together. Things would be difficult, and more dangerous for Vincent, if he was in a temper. She drew a deep breath and made an effort to produce a tone not entirely devoid of emotion. "I am not trying to punish you."

He made a succinct sound of disbelief, but he did not argue. Instead, he curtly addressed what she knew was a constant concern of his: "Are you afraid of me now?"

She shook her head quickly. "No, it is not that." Only after she had said it did she realize that it was finally untrue. Strange, how that had crept up on her. "Well…" She gestured ambiguously, buying herself a moment to put her thoughts together. "I do fear you, but not for the reason you think." Although she generally believed in honesty, she could hardly believe she had opened that particular door, and she berated herself for it. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, moving through the luminescent trees, hoping this conversation might not go where she was afraid it would.

"Tell me." His voice was a rumble, low and insistent, like far-off thunder.

Already regretting her candor, Loríen resisted an urge to put her head into her hands and sigh. Under threat of too much emotion she retreated, as always, into prim formality. "This is not the proper time for such a conversation."

Vincent was clearly getting angrier with every word she spoke, but in that frightening way of his, he had it all carefully restrained and showing only in the blaze of his red eyes. "When will the _proper time_ be?" he demanded quietly. "You know you're not planning on coming back from this."

More forest passed by as she struggled to accept that those words had just been spoken aloud. That they were the truth was not in question, but she would have preferred that if he had to be so damn perceptive that at least he could have pretended not to know. She forced herself not to react emotionally. "This is the death I have earned," she admitted, "and I go to it prepared to do my part before the end. Would you take it from me?"

"That's another subject entirely." He said it promptly, dismissively, leaving her again to feel childishly uncertain and completely out of her depths with him.

That angered her. It was not in her nature to accept that anything was beyond her, and she had not been brought up to allow anyone to make her feel small. They would get this sorted out, now, and be done with it. And she would not like telling him these things, and he would not like hearing them, but it would hopefully give him whatever it was he needed from her in order for them to complete this mission together.

"All right. Vincent." She drew another deep, steadying breath before uttering her realization of a few minutes earlier. "I fear you, fear looking at you, because you make me _feel_."

He didn't answer right away. "Feel what?"

She made herself just say it: "Everything."

To that, he made no response.

In the silence and the space he was allowing her, purposefully or not, Loríen said the rest of it. "And because when I look at you, I am seeing _you_, and _you_ are the one making me feel."

Vincent took a while to make any kind of sense of that, but when he spoke it was obvious that he had finally understood what she meant. "You think that's some kind of betrayal."

She had, some time ago, stopped seeing Naoise when she looked at Vincent. He was who he was without apology and there was no one like him, no one so complex, with so much darkness battling light inside him. Provocatively and stubbornly unique. He had, since the day he had woken her in that lab, been forcing her to face the reality that she was alive. Making her deal with the grief and the pain and the regret and rage but making her feel other things too. Everything. Making her see also that she had a future, if she wanted it. Preventing her from becoming lost inside herself, sometimes compassionately but more often as harshly as he had to. _He_ had, Vincent. And sometimes when she looked at him, lately, she forgot that she had ever known another man with that face.

He got it. He was a very intelligent man, so she was not surprised.

She kept walking, fighting against a sting in her eyes, refusing now to so much as glance in his direction. "It is." A betrayal; he was very perceptive indeed.

"No, it's progress." The declaration allowed no room for argument. "You're waking up, but you keep telling yourself you should still be asleep. I know. Stop fighting it."

He was doing it again – making her feel. It hurt to breathe. "And if I stop fighting it? What is there, here in this waking world, for me?"

"You can find something, build a new life." His voice had lost the hard edge of a moment earlier. "There are people willing to help you."

She said nothing. Could not acknowledge that he might be right. She was on her way to the final rest she deserved and she was _not_ going to discuss this.

"_I'm_ willing to help you." He added it so quietly she almost could not make out the words, but somehow his tone was still quite matter-of-fact.

Loríen did not know what to make of that. Or rather, she did not want to let herself make anything of it. "Whatever you –"

Vincent put out a hand suddenly in a gesture commanding silence, his head up like a hound catching a scent though she could not see his face through the wild shock of his black hair. He listened for a moment, or did whatever it was he was doing, before moving forward slowly, carefully, to crouch down and peer through the foliage. "We're here."

She followed his lead, silently coming up beside him to have a look. What she saw was not what she had expected, somehow. Nothing at all like the mountain of metal and glass they called WRO Headquarters. She was not certain how this place could be fortified, could be called a base of any kind. It was beautiful. Graceful. Again, she was reminded of home.

Several meters from their position, a uniformed figure strolled past on patrol. Loríen was instantly snapped out of her reverie. Vincent waited until the soldier had passed, then put a hand on Loríen's shoulder so he could lean in close to her ear to whisper, "I know a way in through the back. Follow me."

Loríen shook her head and responded with equal care. "No. I should go in alone. My presence will distract Gaetano. Then you can follow undetected and disable the weapon."

He looked at her shrewdly with those painful, compelling red eyes. "You could at least pretend you don't see this as a suicide mission."

She gestured her disagreement. "It is not that. I am simply suggesting what I think is the best way I can help. I did study the weapon as well as I could in the time we had, but you must confess I will not be much use attempting to work the… what did they call it? Computer."

He considered that for a moment, allowing the truth of it. Finally he shook his head. "It wouldn't work. Gaetano would know you were not alone. The only way you could have gotten here so fast is by airship; you think he'd believe you hijacked one and flew it here yourself?"

True, dammit. She sighed.

Vincent resumed his methodical examination of the approach to the city that Gaetano was using as his base. "No. We're going to have to stay together and get as far as we can by stealth. Do you think you can handle the manual override on the missile?"

She nodded. If all she had to do was destroy it, that should not be too complicated.

They started to move when he indicated that the way was clear. "Good. Then you take the manual override, and I'll handle the computer. We stick together, we both come out alive. Got it?"

Loríen glanced at him, but did not know what to say if she was not allowed to argue. She kept moving in silence.

The path into the city was a winding one. Vincent mostly ignored it, choosing a route that led them between and even through buildings and kept them out of sight. At some point, they started heading downward, but instead of descending into some kind of hole in the earth they were apparently finally entering the city proper. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, and furthermore Loríen could not deny that he had exceptional instincts and training for this sort of thing, so she followed his lead implicitly.

Eventually, they came to a building that was obviously not a ruin. Even if she had not noticed that the walls showed recent signs of renovation, she would have spotted the electrical wiring because of how grossly out of place it appeared on the castle-like structure. Vincent did some reconnaissance, figuring out their best point of entry. In the end, he found a tiny, high window that Gaetano's men had neglected to wire. The two of them slithered in through the barely-adequate opening as quietly as they could and found themselves standing nose-to-nose and nearly touching in a very small bathroom.

"I've been here before," Vincent told her before they stepped out into the hallway. "If I'm right, and he hasn't changed things too much, I know exactly where Gaetano will have set up his launch pad. Only one place he could."

Loríen acknowledged this with a nod and gestured for him to lead the way.

Moving with extreme caution, both of them stretching their senses to the utmost for any sign of danger, they made their way out into the narrow hallway. Vincent did seem to have perfect recollection of this place, leading decisively. At one point, they had to duck into a dark room when they heard footsteps heading their way. They stayed there until the way was clear again, then continued in the direction Vincent indicated.

The hallway finally opened into a wide room with several doors in the far wall. Vincent pointed with his metal claw at the largest door, dead center.

They had almost made it when the door opened and the dark-haired man named Raver stepped through, followed by ten more soldiers in uniform. If they were surprised to see Loríen and Vincent in the heart of their base, they did not show it. In fact, Raver smiled.

"Hello, Mother. Welcome home."


	26. Chapter 26

_**Chapter Twenty-Six**_

**It** was a tense moment, despite the smile the half-Avadi man was offering Loríen. His ten comrades, following him through the doorway, arranged themselves behind him in military formation. All of them were armed.

Loríen met his gaze steadily, no sign in her now of the uncertainty she had shown on their way through the forest. She drew her sword. "I am not your mother, and I am most certainly _not_ home."

Perhaps not the wisest of responses, Vincent reflected, given the situation; but he could certainly understand if she had a need to distance herself from these people. He pulled Cerberus free of its holster but did not yet take aim. He made a quick survey of the room and its layout, beginning to mentally map out the sequence of the fight that was about to take place.

The young man who had addressed Loríen – the one with black hair and green eyes and who looked uncannily like the woman beside him – shook his head. "Gaetano said you might say that."

Actually, _all_ of them looked alarmingly like Loríen, each in his or her own way. And they all shared that distinctly _not_-human look she had. Vincent saw it, saw her, in each one of them as he made his assessment of every opponent that stood before him. It was disturbing. He could only imagine how it might feel for Loríen. He also noted that none of them had yet drawn their weapons.

"Raver, was it?" she asked the young man in that soft, unruffled voice of hers. She went on without awaiting an answer, although the youth did nod. "Surely you can understand why I might feel that way."

The man named Raver shrugged noncommittally. His movements had the same kind of sinuous grace Vincent had observed in Loríen, and he carried himself like a fighter. This was not going to be pretty when it exploded. "I don't think you've really had time to process this whole thing," he replied candidly. "It's all happened pretty fast. But I'm sure, given the choice and the time to really come to grips with the situation, you wouldn't choose to be standing there holding a sword against your own children."

"But you see," Loríen told him pointedly, "I have not chosen any of this. Now I can only react to the moment, and it has brought us here." She was stalling, buying time to gauge them and their relative threat level. Vincent wondered if the others could see it as clearly as he did.

"So it's really gonna go down like this?" another one of the half-Avadi in the ranks demanded angrily – a shorter man with a shock of bright red hair that had clearly been dyed, extreme in contrast to the Loríen-like whiteness of his skin. "You're really gonna make us kill you?" He wore a gun on each hip.

"We don't want to," added the taller of the two women in the group. If not for the color of her eyes – very dark, nearly as black as the pupils – and the rounder shape of her face, she could almost pass as a second Loríen. She even wielded the same kind of sword.

"We're hoping you'll listen to reason," a fourth soldier put in. "Give us a chance to explain." Shuriken, similar to Yuffie's. They were facing a wide array of weaponry here.

Vincent took a moment to study Loríen. She appeared quite calm, and her heartbeat had not even accelerated. Whether that meant she had reached critical levels of suicidal apathy, or that she was as impressively bad-ass as she seemed to be, or that she was finally just too insane to grasp the seriousness of the situation, he couldn't really tell. Maybe it was some combination of all three factors. Vincent knew he could not even try to predict her with any kind of accuracy.

He did not know which way he wanted things to go here. The longer this went on, now that their presence was known, the greater the chances were that an alarm would be raised and Gaetano would move up the launch. On the other hand, if there was any chance at all that this might end without bloodshed, Vincent was inclined to prefer that possibility on Loríen's account.

"What is it you think you will explain to me," Loríen asked disdainfully, "that will convince me to take part in this mass murder you have planned?"

"Who do you think you are to judge us?" the black-haired girl demanded with considerable fire. "You don't know what it was like. You don't have any _idea_."

Loríen did not look very much like she cared, or wanted to be enlightened. "No, I suppose not. Nor do _you_ know anything about me, or the path I have walked to arrive at this moment, and yet you have all decided that you have this claim upon me and my loyalties."

Raver took a step closer to her, but he still had not drawn his weapon. "You really don't care? Really? It _really_ doesn't bother you that you and Gaetano are the last, and that the history of an entire race will die with you if you don't _do_ something? You really don't care that – like it or not – you _are_ our mother and whatever happens here today, it's your own blood you're spilling? I've known some cold ess-oh-bees in my life, but if that's true you take the prize."

"We are not talking about _feelings_," Loríen responded sharply, visibly angry. "We are talking about you and Gaetano destroying the world, along with whatever good is left of what we were as a people." Her eyes were smoldering now with restrained rage. She was even angrier now than she had been at Vincent that night on the patio, but this time she was in frightening control of her temper. "I have paid too high a price in protecting them to allow you to dishonor their memory with this foul act."

One of the half-Avadi soldiers who had previously been silent now spoke up. "How do you know what we're doing?" He sounded, frankly, like a petulant child. He even pouted. "What do you think you know about it?"

Raver gestured for him to stop before he said anything else.

Vincent kept quiet, allowing Loríen to answer that in her own way.

"I am not wrong, am I?" she challenged. "Tell me I am mistaken – that you do not have plans to move against the humans of this world."

"They deserve it," spat the one with the dyed-red hair.

"Lobster," Raver warned, shaking his head. He turned his eyes again to Loríen and gestured with one hand, something like a cross between an apology and an invitation. "We're not out for revenge. Really. We just want to be safe, finally. He's not wrong, though. If you wanted to think about it that way, they _do_ deserve it. And I don't only mean because they've spent the last several thousand years wiping us out."

He paused, as though he wanted Loríen to respond, but she did not give him the invitation to continue that he seemed to be looking for.

Raver sighed and shook his head, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

"Tough crowd," the soldier directly to Raver's right observed with a dry smile.

The green-eyed youth returned the smile, but only briefly. He was searching Loríen for something, and Vincent could only assume he wanted some sign that she could be made to see, to _feel_.

"Gaetano saved us," Raver finally told her, almost pleadingly. Like he needed her to understand. "When he found us, where we were, it was like a prison –"

"No, like Hell," Lobster, the redhead with the guns, corrected.

"– and there was no way out," their unofficial leader continued, acknowledging his half-brother's correction with a small nod. "When we were really young – as early as we remember – we were kept in a lab. Poked, prodded, jabbed, injected. Watched. Mold cultures in a Petri dish have more privacy than we did and are probably treated with more affection. Then one day we were moved. No one bothered telling us where or why, like our involvement didn't matter in what was happening to us. In our own lives. From then on it was daily drills, conditioning, treatments. We were never allowed fraternization or free time – it was all business, all the time. Like we weren't really people. From when we were children. Can you imagine that? Can you? They never even gave us names – just numerical designations. I was number nine. Rook –" he gestured at the black-haired girl "–was number thirty-eight. They actually _called_ us that, when they called us anything at all. We had to give each other names, after Gaetano got us out and we saw what the real world looked like. Don't you see? We weren't real to them, not as people. How can we try to share the planet with a species like that? Think of what they did to you – to him," he tagged on, waving a hand at Vincent with a solemn frown. "We're not even the only ones. They're evil, they have to be stopped."

"Doesn't any of this mean anything to you?" the girl called Rook demanded of Loríen almost before the last syllable had left Raver's mouth, incensed by the indifferent expression on her face. "Maybe you didn't know we existed until now, but we're still your flesh and blood. I mean, _look at me._"

Loríen's lips thinned against one another in an expression of annoyance. Vincent knew her well enough by now to know that she did not like having her emotions manipulated so brazenly.

"Life is full of injustice," she said flatly. "If everyone who has ever been wronged had looked for your kind of retribution, I am certain the world would have ended the day it was made." There was no pity in her at all, either in her tone or demeanor. Was she trying to goad them? "But you are not the gods of this world. It is not for you to decide who lives and who is not allowed a place here."

"You don't even know the plan," Lobster said petulantly.

"I believe I know enough," Loríen replied. She lifted her sword into an offensive guard, but it was to Vincent that she directed her next words: "Go on, do what you must do. I will deal with this." She didn't sound like she was bluffing, or being purposefully reckless with her life. Which, given that she was saying she would fight and win against eleven mako-enhanced Avadi super-soldiers, meant that it was obviously the insanity talking.

Vincent shook his head at her. "We stick together, we both come out alive, remember?"

She met his eyes. Hers were steady and completely lucid. "Gaetano surely knows we are here. Someone must stop him from releasing that disease. Do you really think that if we reverse roles, _I_ would be able to disarm the device on my own?" She shook her head, a small grim smile curving her lips upward. "You must do it." When he opened his mouth to argue again, she surprised him by laying a hand on his arm. "Do not worry for me; if I die here, I will have failed to keep these opponents from hindering you in your task, and I do mean to see that Gaetano is stopped."

Still he hesitated. Could she really handle all of these soldiers on her own?

Rook and Raver exchanged a look, and the green-eyed soldier pulled his weapon with a sigh.

"Kill Valentine," Raver said to the others, his voice heavy with regret. "But try not to hurt Mother." He lunged in a preliminary attack, his blade met solidly by Loríen's.

She bared her teeth in a feral grimace. "I told you, I am _not_ your mother. And I promise I will not be the one hurt."

The rest of the unit drew or otherwise readied their weapons at some unspoken cue, and came forward as one. Vincent lifted his gun.

"Go!" Loríen repeated, not looking at him this time.

Even as the syllable left her lips, she transformed before his eyes into something terrible and deadly and unstoppable, her movements a seamless fusion of instinct and superb training, her borrowed sword a wall in her hands that their opponents could not breach. Raver could not put his sword anywhere she did not force him to. Bullets came at her from Lobster's guns, but she was not there to take them. Nothing any of them did was coming close to her.

Vincent was mesmerized. The eleven half-Avadi seemed to be experiencing a similar moment of surprise, falling back after the first unsuccessful onslaught.

The other girl – the one who had not spoken at all in the earlier exchange – raised a fist encased in the glow of spirit energy. Taking one hand away from her sword, eyes not even turned in the girl's direction as she exchanged blows with Raver, Loríen lifted the newly-freed hand and absorbed the fire spell effortlessly as it hurtled toward her.

The girl who had cast the spell swore loudly.

"Weak," Loríen said to her, a tiny, wolfish smile about her lips – life finally blazing in her eyes. "Too weak." She looked at Vincent and raised an eyebrow, saying to him wordlessly as clearly as she could, _See?_ _I have this. Now do _your_ job._

Still stunned by the sudden change in Loríen, Vincent squared his shoulders and pushed his way around the chaos that she had already carefully drawn away from the door. He wanted to tell her to be careful, but the sentiment seemed somehow out of place when he glanced back and saw the almost ferocious, intense energy in her face as she all but danced her way between deadly weapons that could not touch her. He didn't know how he knew it, but he knew she'd be all right.

Vincent let himself through the large, now-unguarded door into the room he supposed had once been some kind of throne room, a long time ago. As soon as he closed the door, the sounds of the battle he had left behind were muffled to near-silence. The high ceiling here was what had led him to believe Gaetano would be using this particular building for his silo, and he was right.

The first sight that struck his eyes was the towering bulk of the WRO-issue PX4000 ICBM, rising up like a cancerous growth from the once-beautiful ruin of the Ancients. Someone with a very sick sense of humor had painted a giant, toothy smiley face on the tip of the warhead, and on the side in enormous red letters it said, _Sleep tight!_

A wider inspection of the rest of the converted silo revealed everything Vincent would have expected to find – the roof was now retractable, the walls concrete-lined, the doors steel-reinforced, and the perimeter had been retro-fitted to accommodate an astounding array of electronic computing and communications equipment, including video feed displayed on multiple monitors. One of them, he noticed with a sinking feeling in his gut, was showing Reeve's office at WRO Headquarters. Another had a good view of the WRO's Command Center. The only thing he could possibly think of as a relief was the apparent lack of audio.

Even though it was not relevant to his present task and wasn't really accomplishing anything anyway, Vincent moved to the bank of surveillance monitors and put his gauntleted fist through the two revealing the WRO's activities. He scanned the rest of them. It quickly became clear that several were showing views of Gaetano's other bases. It also became clear that he and Loríen were not the only ones to have been discovered; but from what he could see, his friends had the launch areas secured. On one screen, he saw Tifa waiting at the computer while Cloud held back an attack like the one Loríen was presently dealing with.

Something thudded hard into the door he had just come through. Vincent turned quickly, Cerberus at the ready, but it did not open and nothing else happened. He shook his head, pulled out his phone, and dialed Cid. As it rang, he searched for and found the computer he was looking for. There was a countdown showing in the upper left corner of the screen: less than eighteen hours remained. Apparently Reeve was right to have rushed the operation so feverishly.

"I'm in position," he said into the receiver, holstering his gun.

"Stand by," the pilot responded shortly.

A moment passed, as Cid contacted the other parties. Vincent reached into his jacket, looking for the transponder Shelke had sent with him. He found it at the same moment Cid came back on the line.

"The others are ready," Cid confirmed. "Shelke says attach the transponder now, and turn it on at exactly seventeen-hundred four hours for synchronized telemetry. She'll take it from there, then you can do whatever you gotta do with the manual controls to get 'em out of commission."

Vincent looked at the watch Reeve had given him for the mission. Four minutes thirty-three seconds.

"Understood." He closed the phone and put it away.

He inserted the transponder into the appropriate node, and stood with his finger on the button as he watched the seconds tick by. He couldn't say he truly understood what it was that Shelke was able to do with computers and data, but in this particular case he was just glad to have her on board. Fifteen seconds.

The first bullet ripped through his shoulder, into the computer monitor, and sent him crashing forward over the keyboard. The second made him see stars for a moment, grazing his spinal column as he started to turn to face his attacker. The third, fired in such rapid succession the three blasts were hardly audibly distinguishable, found its way to his heart and put him on the ground before he could finish turning.

Hellmasker tried to claw his way to the surface, to handle the situation. Vincent wasn't exactly in any condition to put up a fight. He felt himself sliding back into the recesses of his own mind, making room for a consciousness that was not his own. The physical transformation registered only dimly, as his body struggled to contain the damage and repair itself. He climbed to his feet, but had to stop there.

"None of that," a pleasant voice said calmly.

When the mist of the transformation had cleared, Vincent found himself looking into an abnormally mild pair of blue eyes. He also found that he was being held quite firmly in place by some mental or magical power.

The owner of the gentle blue eyes was holding a gun, smoke still issuing sinuously from the barrel. He regarded Vincent as Hellmasker with something not quite as strong as curiosity. "Not the best look for you, I'm afraid. How fortunate that your poor father isn't alive to see what you've become."

Vincent wasn't sure he would be able to speak under his present confinement, but he tried to make himself anyway. The voice and the words that hissed from him were Hellmasker's. _**"Gaetano, I presume."**_

The slight Avadi man lowered the gun, offering a small, mocking bow. "And now that the introductions are over –"

He stopped when the computer behind Vincent issued a chirping alarm and then started to beep rhythmically. Vincent tried to turn his head, but could not manage to break the invisible shackles holding him immobile.

"Oh dear," Gaetano tutted conversationally. "Difficult to say for certain, with the monitor regrettably out of service, but it sounds rather like you've triggered the failsafe. I could tell you how much longer you have to say your goodbyes, but isn't the suspense more fun?"

As if on cue, the phone in Vincent's pocket rang on vibrate.

The smaller man reached into Vincent's jacket, searching until he had found the phone, and there was nothing Vincent could do to stop him. Infuriated and helpless, he could only snarl his rage.

Gaetano smiled at him and opened the phone. "I'm afraid Mr. Valentine is unavailable at the moment," he said affably. "You could call back in a few minutes, but I don't think he'll be around anymore. And Loríen – well, she's busy. Playtime with the kids. I think they're finally _bonding_."

Vincent – Hellmasker – growled.

"I seem to have distracted him at the crucial moment," the Avadi man continued cheerfully, in response to something said on the other end. "Sorry about that." He flipped the phone shut, dropped it to the floor, and put a bullet into it. Tiny bits of plastic went flying everywhere.

"And now that we have some time to ourselves, Mr. Valentine," Gaetano said, casually settling into a rolling desk chair with Vincent close by and in full view, "I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you just how much I despise you, before you die."


	27. Chapter 27

_**Chapter Twenty-Seven**_

**There** were a lot of bodies. Not all of them were dead, but Loríen wasn't about to check. She was rather more concerned with seeing that she did not join them. Raver was still putting up a hell of a fight, proving stubbornly unwilling to fail. She couldn't entirely fault him for it, even if she thought he was wrong on every level. He started crying some time after she felled the last of his siblings, tears streaming down his face as they battled one another over the fate of humanity.

He fought well anyway, handling his ridiculously large sword with surgical precision. Clearly he had meant it when he'd said that their lives had consisted of nothing but military exercises.

Truthfully, even though it was a matter of fact and not mere arrogance on Loríen's part for her to believe she had the training and natural skill to best nearly any opponent who might challenge her in single combat, she knew she had been lucky today. Facing so many, and with their abilities, she could easily have been overpowered if they had not been so obviously afraid of her. Of her, and of hurting her. But they had been, and she had exploited that fear. She did not allow herself to feel guilty about it. Too much was at stake.

"You know," she said to Raver, blocking what would have been a cleaving blow to her head, "we do not have to fight. There is no shame in surrender to a superior adversary."

He grunted as he fended off her answering attack. "There's no honor in it either."

She pressed her momentary advantage, aggressively driving him into a corner. "You do not have to do this."

"Hm. I think –" he paused briefly to duck the scything cut that nearly left him headless "– after what you did to Mads, I kind of do."

Loríen did not take the bait and allow herself to be distracted by glancing aside at the poor girl's remains. Of all the children, all the opponents she had faced here, the one who fought with magic was the only one Loríen had feared. She knew it was the weakness in her defenses. So when the girl, Mads, had sent that last blast of space-warping magical energy streaming at Loríen, she had probably been more forceful than strictly necessary in turning the spell back on the caster. She felt bad about it, but not enough to wish things had gone differently. She kept her eyes on the black-haired man in front of her.

Raver reached up with one hand and gripped the light fixture on the wall above his head, tearing it from its wires and throwing it at Loríen's face in one smooth motion. She batted it aside with her blade, which gave him just enough of a respite to escape from his tight spot in the corner and to press forward with an aggressive attack of his own.

"That is an evasion," Loríen told him, using her sword to guide the force of his blow away from her body, allowing him to embed his large blade into the concrete floor. She kicked him in the jaw before he could pull the weapon free. He went sprawling backward, but managed to roll to his feet right away. She made several swipes at him with the sharp edge of her blade, more to drive him further away from his own weapon than because she thought they might actually land. He dodged them all, moving with a grace she could not help but find beautiful.

"You are not fighting me to avenge your sister," she went on. "And we both know it." She sliced the air where his feet had been until he leaped out of the way, and followed the cut with a vicious backhand punch that was there to meet his face where she had known it would end up. He fell again, this time landing hard on his back.

"What –" he paused, gasping for air. Rolled himself out of the way of her blade yet again. "What would you have me do? I _owe_ him. We all do." Still lying on the floor, he kicked her heel-first in the gut. The contact sent her back several paces.

She swallowed the pain and redirected the energy through the rest of her body. He was on his feet again, back to his sword and pulling it free, before she could stop him.

They circled one another, wary, gauging.

"I understand that you owe him," she replied. She was starting to feel winded and could only hope her opponent was too. "They were turning you into monsters, and he saved you."

Raver's eyebrow twitched.

She shook her head at him. "But do you not see that he is using you – using what was done to you? They made you into instruments of death and he is using that for his own purposes. And you are letting him."

"We are not –" he swung his sword at her torso "– monsters!"

The attack had not been serious and Loríen blocked it easily. "Not yet."

His green eyes blazed with pain. "Why won't you help us?" he demanded. "Why don't you care?"

"Why are you letting him do this to you?"

Raver dropped his guard, his gaze moving over the scene of carnage, taking in the bodies of his fallen brothers and sisters. She took a step back, allowing him his moment. "We just…" He swiped with one hand at the tears still leaking from his eyes. "We just wanted to be _safe_."

Loríen did not respond to that.

"You really, you can't know what it was like," he told her sadly, shaking his head. "When Gaetano found us, and saved us, we finally _belonged_ somewhere. He made us feel like…" He trailed off, lost for words.

"Like you were loved?" Loríen filled in. They really were just children after all. Children that had never known the concepts of home or family or acceptance.

Loríen had never experienced those things either. Not really. She had never known her parents, had never been allowed to think it would be all right to become anything other than the woman she had been shaped into. She knew what it was like to be raised not as a person – as a soul – but instead as a tool. Not really a part of her environment, not belonging in it, but there to be of use to it. She knew the isolation and the loneliness Raver was talking about.

Something flickered in the depths of his green eyes so like her own. "Yes. And like… like we were _real_. You know?"

She nodded.

They stared at each other for what felt like a very long time.

Raver sighed. "I –"

Gunshots resounded through the entire building from the room Vincent had gone into. Three of them, in rapid succession. It was not the sound she had come to associate with Vincent's three-barreled gun.

Loríen made a lunge for the door.

Raver was there to block her, grief evident in every contour of his young face. "No," he told her quietly. "I can't let you. I'm sorry. Maybe he's wrong, maybe we shouldn't be doing this, but I… can't let him down."

She was not going to beg. There was no time for that, anyway. "I am sorry, too."

They exchanged blows, Loríen's instincts screaming at her to hurry, to get to Vincent before it was too late. Raver's defense was nominal this time, but it was still several passes before he made himself vulnerable in a way she could use to her advantage. Eventually, he repeated a particular parry/thrust combination for a third time, and Loríen happened to be in place to exploit the way he had left his torso wide open. She snaked her blade in for a devastating slice to his abdomen, and followed it with a quick thrust to the chest.

He dropped his sword, metal clanking loudly to the cold hard floor. His knees were next to hit the ground. When he toppled after that, it seemed to happen in slow motion.

Loríen was there to catch his weight before his head made contact with the concrete. There was a lot of blood, darker than a human's but not darker than her own. As much as she knew she had no time for this, she also understood that for this one moment, nothing else in her life or the world was as important as the next few beats of this man's heart. He looked up at her and frowned. She resisted the need to ask him why they had done this to each other.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, faintly this time. "I just… wanted to belong to something. Mother. I wanted to be real. I wanted _you_ to…" He stopped and fought for breath, and a grim smile formed about his lips. "But, it looks like we never had any hope of being anything but killers." He gestured weakly at the bodies of his brothers and sisters, some alive and gravely wounded but more of them not, and it was clear that he was summing up the fullness of Loríen's grisly handiwork.

He was wrong. She was not a killer, and neither was he, and it was never what their people had been either. And yet it was more complicated than that. She shook her head, but there was too much to say and not enough time for it. It didn't matter anyway.

"Don't forget us," he whispered. His eyes were losing focus. "If you live, and you remember, then maybe… we were…"

Whatever Raver had meant to say, he did not finish. He never said anything ever again. Loríen swallowed, closed his eyelids, and lowered him carefully to the ground. He was wrong.

And she cared too much.

For a moment, the enormity of what she had just done nearly overwhelmed her. She fought to keep herself together – she could not afford to think about this right now. There was still a job to be done, and it mattered now more than ever, now that she had committed such terrible acts to get this far. Too many people had died already. It was enough.

Pushing herself to her feet, very carefully not crying, she retrieved her sword and stood facing the door. Whatever lay beyond, in some sense of the word it was going to be the end, of something. She hoped she was not too late to avert disaster, for Vincent or for the world.

* * *

The wheels were stubborn, refusing to roll properly, and made an unpleasant squealing noise as Gaetano dragged his chair closer to Vincent's side.

"_**You can't hold me like this forever,"**_ Hellmasker hissed with Vincent's vocal chords. _**"When I break loose, you will wish you had killed Valentine with that toy gun of yours."**_

The slight Avadi man shrugged. "I don't have to hold you forever. Just long enough." He smiled. "And while we wait…"

"_**You were going to scold Valentine like a child,"**_ the bloodthirsty demon spat contemptuously. Vincent tried to shut him up, but to no avail. He was still healing and too weak. _**"Spare me. Let's get back to this entertaining delusion of yours that you could kill me if you tried." **_

Gaetano smiled again. "Oh, we'll get there. But before you die, I want you to know _why_. Do you have any idea, Mr. Valentine," he said conversationally, "what an atrocious, destructive, evilly ungrateful _brat_ you are?"

"_**You haven't **_**seen**_** destructive yet,"**_ the demon replied.

His captor was not amused by Hellmasker's attitude. The man's pale eyebrows came together in a severe line. "I am quite aware that you are even more of a liability to yourself and those around you in this form, I assure you. Imagine what Grimoire would say, if he saw what you have let yourself come to."

"_**Do you really think I care? I prefer to imagine what you will be saying as I rend the limbs from your twitching body."**_

Gaetano narrowed his eyes. "Disgusting."

"_**And for presuming to lay your hands upon my property,"**_ Hellmasker went on sibilantly, _**"I'll make sure you scream before you die."**_

"Property?" Gaetano snorted the word. "I am going to hope you're not talking about Loríen, because if you are… Well. It's no use discussing appropriateness with a serial killer, I suppose. But she is a separate topic. I had planned on killing you in your father's name, Vincent Valentine."

"_**Do you know what I like to do, right before my victim's heart stops beating?"**_ He was, unfortunately, not just blustering for the sake of intimidation. Vincent could feel the demon's perverse delight at being free and about to cause suffering, and he could see in his mind what the creature meant to do once he could move again.

Admirably, Gaetano managed to ignore that. "I knew him, you see. We worked together – I was part of the science team tasked to the Avadi Project in Midgar. He was always so dedicated to the pursuit of answers. So focused. He saw a goal and refused to let it out of his sight, no matter how far off or impossible it seemed. Of course, to a mind as brilliant as his, nothing would have been impossible, if he'd had enough time."

Vincent knew all too well that his father had split his time between his work at the Gongoga lab and Midgar in those last days as Ayame wasted away at home without him. It was a part of the hatred Vincent had been carrying around for all these years, and it was hardly a point to commend Grimoire in Vincent's eyes. But Hellmasker wasn't letting him speak, anyway.

"_**Touching. So, are all Avadi this gay, or is it just you?"**_

Gaetano seemed to be truly angry for the first time, his fist clenching over the arm of his chair.

"Not all of us had a father to mistreat as terribly as you did yours, _Vincent_," he spat venomously. "He was a great man, but you were always a monster. Even before you had the convenient excuse Hojo gave you to show your true face to the world. You never respected your father the way you should have. Never loved him. He did not deserve to have you as his son."

That last was probably true, but it was strange hearing these things from another man – one he did not know. He wondered where this was coming from, and why. Why Gaetano thought it was any of his business.

But it was Hellmasker who answered for him. _**"I wonder, how much juice do you think you have left in this spell of yours? Choose your next words carefully, little man."**_

The door opened quietly before Gaetano could respond to that, and Loríen stepped through.

Even though there was a lot to take in, she did it quickly and efficiently. Her gaze began with Vincent's altered form and ended with him as well, but if she was feeling anything at all – either from whatever had just happened to her on the other side of that door or in response to the scene before her now – it did not show in her face. In fact, she had never looked quite this coldly removed and in control, not even in the beginning. Hellmasker thought of it as a delightful challenge.

"I would ask why are you doing this," she said to Gaetano once she had completed her assessment of the situation, "but I have discovered that I do not care what your answer might be. This is not who we are. It never has been."

The Avadi man stood slowly, carefully, all his attention now on the woman in the room. Or, not _all_, because Vincent still could not move. "That's why we're dying."

"No." Her mouth was a hard, flat line. "It is why we _died_, or a part of the reason why. It is over for us, Gaetano. But now you will destroy all memory of what we were by turning us into monsters."

Gaetano snorted at the word, but he was not smiling. "Isn't that better than letting them win?"

She answered without hesitation. "If you do this, _then_ they have won. And you have doomed us all."

"You really did it, then?" He shook his head. "I confess I did not entirely believe you would, though Jangle tried to convince me otherwise. I guess he got a better read on you than I did; but then, he _is_ usually right about these things." He sighed as though burdened by the literal weight of the world. "This all may have come as a shock to you, but I really didn't think you'd have the stomach to murder your own _children_."

She didn't even blink. "Murder? A strange word for _you_ to choose." She started to move closer, coming toward both men with slow, deliberate steps that had an inevitable, inescapable quality to them. Her sword was in her hand, bloodied and quite at home and obviously ready to do whatever she might ask of it.

Gaetano watched her, head cocked as though he was observing some rare curiosity. "By that I assume you refer to the plan you have come to prevent me from completing."

Loríen kept walking, each step a distinctly-offered threat. "I do not believe I ever insulted your intelligence by indicating that I thought I was being obscure."

In spite of everything, the man smiled at that. "I like you. I really do. I hope we shall be able to salvage a friendship out of this, in time."

Her expression did not change, though she did alter her grip on her sword. "You know that will not be possible. At least one of us is dying today."

"That's far enough," Gaetano barked suddenly, when she had come more than half-way across the large former throne room. Obviously knowing his words alone would not stop her, he pulled his gun once more and flicked the safety off. She kept coming. He cocked the gun and aimed it tranquilly at Vincent's forehead.

Loríen's steps halted, with almost ungraceful suddenness.

They were all silent for a moment, the only sound that of the computer rhythmically beeping out the countdown to Armageddon as the three people in that room contemplated what possibilities the next few minutes might hold.

Then Loríen blinked, slowly. "He will heal," she declared, and kept walking. She was getting close now, reducing the distance between herself and the last remnant of her past, coming on with cold finality in her eyes and in her posture. Gaetano's aim wavered as he watched her, visibly trying to figure her out.

"You really are a frigid bitch, aren't you?" the Avadi man breathed, shaking his head. "You called this man your _friend_."

She made no response to that. Simply kept coming.

Vincent wrestled down the comment Hellmasker was aching to voice. It would not help, not at all, and would reveal far too much of Vincent's own inner violence. Not that this was really the time to be worried about preserving his image, but nothing could be helped by allowing her to know just how messed up he really was.

Gaetano was starting to breathe faster. Any second now, he was going to pull the trigger.

This was beyond enough; Vincent asserted his will in a bid to take control of his body back from the demon currently calling the shots. Hellmasker fought him, but Vincent had long ago figured out how to overpower his demons. Now that he was no longer weakened by healing bullet-wounds, it was not much of a contest. He felt his form ripple and shift and tear, surrounded by a disorienting purple-black mist, and his ears rang with a percussive blast – and a moment later he was himself again.

Loríen was looking at him in mild confusion, a tiny furrow marring the white space between her thin eyebrows. Then Vincent saw that her free hand had gone to her torso, just below her breasts, her fingers splayed strangely as though she was holding herself in. Her hand was red when she pulled it away. She turned her eyes slowly, as if her movements were subject to some magically-induced time-delay, toward Gaetano and the gun he was now pointing at her instead of Vincent.

Fury washed over Vincent in a white-hot wave. Gaetano had used him, used the distraction of his transformation. That son of a bitch.

The Avadi with the gun pumped another round into his target, who could not even attempt to dodge the shot. This one took her in the collarbone – Vincent could hear it shatter on impact. The air was forced from her body in a grunt of pain and she staggered back two paces, and then a third, before sinking to her knees. She still had her sword in her hand; it rang out, unnaturally loud, as the tip hit the ground.

Vincent still could not move, but he could feel the magic weakening. He studied Loríen carefully, professionally, keeping a tight hold of his temper. The shot to her torso appeared to have gone through her diaphragm, and she was struggling to breathe. Her left arm hung limp at her side, rendered useless by the ruined clavicle. The bullet seemed to have missed her heart, but there was no telling whether or not it had grazed something vital that might have her bleeding out in the next handful of minutes. Both wounds were producing copious quantities of dark blood. In short, his experience told him that if she did not get medical help within fifteen minutes – at a practical estimate – she wasn't going to make it.

Now that the tables had turned, Gaetano approached Loríen without concern, tipping out the empty shell casings from his gun and reloading as he walked. Loríen swallowed and lifted her head, attempting to focus on the man before her. It was clear to Vincent's veteran eye that she was already going into shock.

"Loríen…" Gaetano sighed. "I'm sorry I had to do that. Really. If you can be patient for a moment, we'll get you sorted out when this is all over." He reached out and touched her cheek, shaking his head ruefully. "But you know, I'm disappointed in you."

She blinked, wavering on her knees.

Behind them, the computer kept beeping.

Vincent very carefully kept silent, not drawing attention to himself, fighting to break free of his paralysis.

Gaetano went on, addressing Loríen as though they were having a perfectly civil conversation under normal circumstances. "You don't exactly have a history of doing right by your people. I would have thought you'd welcome the chance to make up for some of your – I'd have to call them _betrayals_."

Confusion and some fear played over Loríen's face as she struggled to breathe and to stay upright.

"That's right," Gaetano whispered, leaning close to her ear. "I know who you are."

Vincent heard the words, but the only sense he could get from them was that things were very, very bad at the moment.

Even though her breathing was becoming increasingly labored, and she had started to shake pretty badly, Loríen tried to raise her sword. Gaetano grabbed her wrist and easily wrestled the weapon out of her grip. It clattered noisily to the floor. He sighed again.

"Oh, yes," he went on. He sounded angry now. "_Loralíenasa Raia_. I know _exactly_ who you are. Do you think I'm an idiot? The last queen of the _evlé'í_ goes mad and disappears mysteriously, then you turn up in stasis thousands of years later. Of _course_ I put the pieces together." He grimaced, pressing his gun to her forehead. "You betrayed your own people. You betrayed them, left them exposed and vulnerable, then turned your back on them when they needed leadership. Because, why? Because things got _hard_? Because you were _sad_? Because you are a spoiled, selfish little princess who likes to talk tough but can't take the pressure when it comes down to real business? Do you even _have_ a reason, or have you always just been a cold, self-centered bitch?"

She shook her head, struggling for air. "You… do not…"

"Are you going to tell me I don't know what it was like?" Gaetano snarled. "Sounds familiar."

She shook her head again. "N-Not what…"

Without warning, Gaetano backhanded her viciously across the face. Already off balance, she went sprawling backward, her head making hard contact against the floor. A faint whimper escaped her, but with surprising control she tried to roll up into a better position to keep an eye on the man who had struck her. He looked down at her with an icy, accusing eye and put a foot on her abdomen, right over the bleeding bullet hole.

"That's enough out of you. You just lie there until this is over, and I'll think about whether or not I actually need you alive." He frowned. "I could always go the company's route – take some eggs, use them as I see fit. You're sort of more trouble than you're worth, to be honest."

Loríen choked, wheezing.

But Gaetano was already turning away from her, back to Vincent. "And you."

"You're going to regret that," Vincent rumbled quietly.

The Avadi man slid up to Vincent's side, smiling affably. "Oh? And how is that?"

Vincent looked down at him with his most intimidating glare. "Your disease is designed to be fatal to humans, and I'm not human. And I'm betting you can't hold me like this much longer." He smiled icily. "What do you suppose will happen when I get free?"

"You still think you're going to miraculously break loose and save the day?" Gaetano snorted. "Well, let me just set your mind at rest there."

Extending one hand quickly in the direction of the missile, Gaetano suddenly released a powerful blast of icy air that struck the manual control box, freezing it solid on contact. Aiming calmly, he fired two bullets from his weapon; the frozen box shattered at the impact, crashing to the ground in a million tiny, frozen pieces.

So much for the manual override. Vincent glared at the man, hating him.

"I've prepared something special for you," Gaetano told him casually. He holstered his gun and reached into his yellow leather jacket. What he pulled out was a syringe full of an ugly dark green fluid. He held it up before Vincent's immobile face. "Do you know what this is?" He raised his eyebrows as if inviting an answer, but did not wait for one. "I took the liberty of extracting some of your blood, the day we took Loríen back. This strain is tailor-made for you, little Vincent. Don't be flattered at the attention, though. It's not you I care about, just seeing your father avenged." He grinned again, and there was something horrible in his mild blue eyes. "But I'm afraid I _am_ going to enjoy this."

Staring at that glass tube containing his death less than a handspan away from his face, the computer still beeping its morbid rhythm in the background, Vincent could not help but entertain the possibility that they all might be well and truly screwed.


	28. Chapter 28

Quick A/N: Next chapter after this one will be the last. Thanks for reading.

_**Chapter Twenty-Eight**_

**No.** This was definitely not good.

Loríen was bleeding and possibly suffocating to death no more than ten yards away, and there was nothing Vincent could do about the fact. Meanwhile, the entire world was about to be annihilated by a horrific disease that Vincent was shortly to become all too intimately acquainted with himself. It wouldn't matter if the others had successfully disabled the other missiles – if a single molecule of the toxin hit the atmosphere, that would be the start of a fatal pandemic no one could do anything to bring under control.

This had to end. Now.

Vincent eyed the syringe, applying all of his effort to breaking free of Gaetano's hold on him. The other man grimaced as if exerting himself to his limit.

"That's… enough," the blue-eyed mass-murderer gasped. "I'll do it. I will. Right now. You've done enough damage already, Vincent Valentine."

"What's wrong?" Vincent taunted, sensing weakness and pushing hard. "Murder isn't as easy when you have to look your victim in the eye, is it?"

Gaetano's pleasant features twisted into an expression of hurt rage. "You would know, wouldn't you? But I _will_ do it. It's what you deserve."

"That may be," Vincent said carefully, still fighting. He found that by holding the other man's gaze, he was actually better able to focus while Gaetano's concentration seemed to suffer.

"So you're going to take a righteous stance on it?" the smaller man sneered. "'Maybe you deserve to be punished, but it's not my right to be the one to do it.'?"

Vincent smiled coldly. "Something like that."

"But that's sort of hypocritical, isn't it?" Gaetano demanded truculently. "How many lives have you taken, because you decided it had to be done? Who gave _you_ the right? No one! You're a murdering monster, a disgrace to your father and the good name he left you. You make me sick."

Vincent made himself snort in derision. "And the relative weakness of your stomach is what gives _you_ the right to decide whether or not I live or die?"

"_Damn_ you!" Gaetano growled, teeth bared. "You're a sick beast, and you don't even care what you are. Know that I do not regret this – not one bit."

He held the syringe upright, tapping on it to dislodge any air bubbles clinging to the side, and depressed the plunger a millimeter. A ropy stream of the viscous green fluid shot up from the tip. He grabbed the collar of Vincent's cloak, yanking it back to expose his throat.

This was it. If Vincent didn't break free now, it was over. He gave the struggle everything he had.

But nothing happened. He could not move.

He was in seriously deep shit.

As he awaited the sting of the needle, still fighting to the last, he thought, _I'm sorry_. He wasn't even sure who he meant the apology for. Maybe it was for everyone, all the millions of people who were about to die because he had been careless. Maybe it was for his father, or Loríen. Or himself.

_I did my best, and it wasn't enough. I'm sorry._

A flash of light blinded him suddenly – a white-hot fireball bursting inches away from his neck. Instinctively, Vincent closed his eyes and turned his face away from the source of the heat. He heard a sound of shattering glass, followed immediately by a dry hiss. Gaetano screamed in sharp agony.

Just as quickly as it had flared into being, the fire was gone. And in that same moment, Vincent realized he was not being held in place any longer. He opened his eyes to see Gaetano gripping his own seriously burned hand, fury marring his mild visage into something resembling a rabid animal. The syringe was nowhere in sight. Incinerated, along with its contents.

A wet gasp pulled Vincent's attention in Loríen's direction in time to see her weakly drop the hand she had been extending in his direction. Residual spirit energy was still coiling about her forearm, snapping at her fingertips. Her bloodless face was twisted by agony and effort and was painful to look at, and the exertion had left her in even worse shape than before. She wasn't going to last much longer. Her head fell back to rest again in the blood pool widening rapidly beneath her.

Finally free and able to give vent to his unhappiness with the situation, Vincent snarled and seized two fistfuls of Gaetano's jacket, bringing the shorter man up to stare him in the eye. "Shut it down," he commanded, no room for argument in the violence of his tone.

Despite the sudden, unexpected turn of events, Gaetano did not appear as nonplussed as Vincent would have liked him to. "Oh, I don't think so," he forced out, breathing with some difficulty as he dangled in Vincent's grasp. "What else have I got left, at this point?"

"Your life," Vincent answered succinctly. "But not for much longer, if you don't shut down the launch." He rattled the other man's teeth just enough to send a message, then opened his fists and allowed Gaetano to drop to the floor. "Do it."

Gaetano scuttled backward some distance, crab-style, before climbing unsteadily to his feet. His right hand was badly blistered. Vincent knew his own neck would not be looking too good at the moment, either, but it was a small price to pay. He was alive. But the Avadi grinned at him, which was not a good sign.

"Didn't Loríen warn you not to underestimate me, Mr. Valentine? No? She should have. Or perhaps she did and you were just too damn bullheaded to listen."

Before Vincent could think about making any kind of response to that, Gaetano had raised his left hand, sending a rippling wave of super-heated air in his direction. He dove out of the way, rolling to cover under the bank of monitoring equipment while pulling his gun. There was an impact explosion on the wall behind his former position. He fired even before he had stopped moving, three triple rounds tearing through empty air where Gaetano should have been.

Vincent quickly surveyed the area, but he was looking at nothing. Gaetano had not simply dodged – he was gone.

"You'll have to do better than that, Valentine," the light, amused voice of his adversary declared. He himself was nowhere to be seen. So, some invisibility skill, then. Vincent wondered what else he could do.

"Funny," Vincent replied, getting to his feet. "I was going to tell you the same thing."

Gaetano did not respond. Vincent listened hard for any sound to give him a clue. He could hear the other man's heart beating, and rapidly at that, but it was hard to pinpoint. He could even smell the stench of burned flesh; but it was still sort of a pervasive smell, so soon after the incident.

Acting on his intuition, Vincent fired again in the direction of the door. He was rewarded with a grunt of pain, one of the bullets disappearing instead of burying itself in the doorframe. Gaetano faded into view, grimacing in agony. A spot of red had blossomed on his shoulder.

"That was lucky," Gaetano scoffed, flinging Fire at Vincent as he spoke.

The former Turk made good use of his enhanced reflexes, moving out of the way well before the spell made contact. "No, that was superior skill," he returned, knowing he should not taunt but somehow unable to help himself. God, he hated this man. He shot Gaetano's hand as the Avadi man reached for his gun. "So much for your advanced race."

"You don't get it at all," Gaetano told him scornfully, ignoring the pain in his hand. But he did not elaborate. Instead, he dug deeper into his magic arsenal, forcing Vincent to counter. The two men exchanged a flurry of attacks, while time continued to run its course.

* * *

Breathing hurt, a kind of pain that reminded Loríen all too vividly that she had felt this way before. Hadn't this all happened already? She could remember lying like this in a pool of her own blood, hurting, wishing it would just stop, while two men fought to decide her fate. Her past and present were bleeding into each other disorientingly. The only thing rooting her in the now was the countdown, that horrible faceless clock doling out the last of all seconds in that offensively mechanical tone.

But the pain… Damn. It was hard to think, and certainly not clearly. She had seen Vincent fire his weapon before, had seen the damage it could inflict, but she had not imagined that getting shot would hurt quite this much. Nothing at all like a sword wound, or even like taking an arrow. Like so much else in this new, strange world, it was simply leagues beyond anything she had thought herself prepared to deal with.

She swallowed, her scattered thoughts flitting in Vincent's direction; but he was occupied.

They were all the world to one another now, Vincent and Gaetano, locked in mortal combat over stakes that seemed somehow more personal than the mere fate of humanity. Loríen had little doubt that Vincent would overpower his opponent eventually – he was not the type of man to admit defeat – but when? Would it be soon enough?

They had given her a device… Carefully, reaching with the arm that would still obey her, Loríen felt at her side for the shape of the thing. It was square-ish and bulky and unlovely, but they had shown her how to use it, and it was all she could do now. Bringing the grey brick up before her lips, she depressed the button with her thumb like they had said to.

"C-Cid." Shit. It was _really_ hard to talk, to get in enough air and push it back out as words. And was that horrible metal projectile still lodged in her body somewhere? She thought she could feel it in there, working her death closer with every breath she tried to take.

She made another effort. "Cid… need h-help." Carefully following instructions, she removed her thumb from the button to allow a response from the other end.

The pilot's gruff voice crackled over the line. "Damn, Loríen, that you? You sound bad, kid. What's your status?"

It worked. Relieved almost to tears at the small victory, Loríen had to make herself concentrate on getting more air. "…screen broken, manual… destroyed, countdown still on. What –" She stopped, wheezing. "W-what can w-we…?" She let her thumb slide away from the button.

"Where the hell's Vincent? Put him on."

"Busy. Gaetano. Tell me."

"Gotcha. Sit tight a minute, let me talk it out with the techno queen. Don't you die in the meantime."

Loríen waited, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of Gaetano and Vincent trying to kill each other, and the computer, and the static from the communications device. And, somehow, her own heartbeat, like a second countdown – one she could do nothing about. Time faded and stretched and her awareness of her own place in existence started to feel tenuous.

Then the pilot's voice was growling out of the small machine again. "Shelke says to ask if you're sure the manual override is out of play."

Breathing hurt. A lot. Loríen did her best to form a noise that conveyed affirmation.

"In that case," he answered grimly, "you're just gonna have to cut the relay to the rocket igniters. No signal, no ignition. That's what Shelke says, anyhow."

She tried to make that mean something to her, but with no luck. "…how do I…?"

Cid sounded far more patient than she would have thought him capable of. "There'll be a cable running from the launch computer to the rocket engines. Should be pretty big. You see it?"

Loríen opened her eyes, breathing carefully. She angled her head on the floor until the giant weapon was in her line of sight; the puddle of her own blood, slicking the concrete, actually made moving easier. It took a moment for her vision to focus properly, but when it did she could in fact see a bundle of thick black cables linking the missile to the computer with the dead screen. At first terrified glance, it looked like it was at least a hundred impossible meters away from her; but, forcing herself to concentrate, she soon realized it wasn't far at all.

She thumbed the button again. "I see it. Can d-do… that."

"Hey," Cid replied, urgency audible in his voice. "You all right? I ain't kiddin', you sound like half-warmed shit. You sure Vince can't do it?"

"…sure," Loríen breathed. "Thank you."

Moving with infinite care, not waiting for a reply, she replaced the communications device at her belt in case she needed it again and felt around with her right hand for her sword. It had to be close. She had been holding it when Gaetano – there, yes. Found it. She worked her blood-slick fingers at the blade's edge until she had enough of a grip to pull it closer. It was hard work, but eventually she had it in her hand and she rolled over onto her stomach so she could sheathe the weapon at her back. Extending her arm to do it made her torso feel like it was literally tearing apart.

They had switched tactics now, Loríen noted as she took stock of the situation before proposing to venture forward. Vincent was the one using magic, and Gaetano was fighting with a weapon that looked familiar. Son of a bitch, that was _her_ sword, the one Vincent had given her. She surprised herself by wanting this man dead, even being who and what he was. Even though he was the last.

That was not her concern at the moment, however.

And once she started moving, pulling herself across the floor with her one good arm, she was really not capable of thinking of anything but the excruciating agony and the fact that she _had_ to do this. She had to, or it would all have been for nothing. Maybe Gaetano was right and she really _had_ failed her people before, but she couldn't let him do this now. Everything she had suffered, all those she had lost, the excessive consequences she had already endured to preserve her people's legacy – if she let Gaetano do this, then she would be letting him trample the memory of everything they had ever been into the mud.

She would not have it.

Loríen dragged herself as far as she could before she had to take a moment to breathe. Almost there, but there was no _time_ for this. She put her forehead down on the floor and allowed the chill of the concrete to flow into her overheated skull. The device was crackling and popping at her side.

"Loríen! What the hell's goin' on over there? Talk to me, dammit! Shit, woman, say somethin'!"

Fighting the pain and the weakness and the way her eyes weren't really focusing anymore, Loríen forced herself onward. She was nearly beyond the pain, approaching black oblivion, by the time she got to the bulky cluster of wires leading from the computer bank to the towering mass of the warhead. She had no idea which one was the, whatever Cid had called it, ignition relay. So they all had to go.

She heard Gaetano screaming her name and an incoherent complaint as she reached back for her sword. If he tried to stop her, she knew there was nothing she could do to fight him. She would just have to trust Vincent to do his part. As if in answer to that thought, she heard what sounded like a body being thrown across the room.

Again, it felt like she was ripping herself apart, but she got her sword into her hand, pushed herself to her knees, and brought the blade down onto the bundle of electrical wiring. Not all of the cables cut through on her first try. Gritting her teeth, knowing this was all she had left in her, Loríen gave it one more feeble hack.

Whether or not it had been enough, she did not know. Her vision was swimming now, all other sounds drowned out by the roaring of blood in her head. She fell forward into darkness.

* * *

That was the last damned straw. When they saw Loríen dragging herself across the floor, leaving that awful trail of gore, in an obvious desperate attempt to stop the launch, all of Vincent's demons made it quite clear that they felt things had gone far enough and that he could not be trusted to deal with the situation. The fact that Gaetano was proving a far more formidable opponent than Vincent would have thought possible, given his soft looks and unassuming build, did nothing to convince Vincent that they were wrong.

But he had to do this. Failure here was not an option. Especially not now that Loríen had killed herself trying to complete the mission.

The materia Reeve had given him to replace what Gaetano had stolen was low-level and had not been much use, but Vincent decided it was still worth another try as a distraction at least. He sent off a burst of lightning and followed Gaetano with the sight on his gun as the other man dodged. He fired before Gaetano could change course. This time the shot took him square in the kidney. Not waiting to see what Gaetano would do, Vincent made use of the speed Galian was offering him in order to get the man in his grip so quickly his movements were no more than a blur.

Gaetano tried to bring his sword up, but Vincent shot out with his claw and grabbed the blade before it had completed its arc. The Avadi man snarled at him without words, and deliberately allowed flames to erupt along his entire body. The close proximity to the fire was painful, to say the least, but Vincent kept his hold. Baring his teeth in a grimace, he snapped his forehead down into the other man's skull, making hard contact. Gaetano groaned, his concentration shot, and sagged in Vincent's grip. The flames went out with a sudden hiss.

Vincent drew back his clawed fist and brought it crashing into Gaetano's jaw, just for good measure. When he loosened his grip on the Avadi's jacket this time, Gaetano crashed to the floor in an unconscious heap. Vincent looked down at the unmoving body, hating him, waiting to see if he was going to get up. Gaetano did not so much as twitch.

The computer was still ticking off the seconds; whatever Loríen had been doing, she had not put a stop to that. Vincent glanced one more time at Gaetano, then ran to the launch pad to have a look at the remains of the box that had contained the manual override. It was toast, as he had feared.

Then the tonal quality of the countdown changed, became harsher. A last-minute warning. If there was anything Vincent could do, he did not know what it was. He couldn't even call to consult with Shelke, because Gaetano had put a bullet through his phone.

Wait… Loríen. Cid had given her a PHS, so she would have a way to contact the ship in the event that something happened to Vincent. He made a dive for her side, aware that ten seconds had already passed in the new warning tone. The PHS was hooked into her belt; he pulled it free and tried to speak in a reasonable tone of voice.

"Cid! A little help. The computer and the manual override are broken, but the countdown is still going. Less than a minute now."

"Already had this conversation, buddy," Cid shouted back at him. "Did she cut the relay?"

With no time to argue or ask what the hell Cid meant, Vincent decided the best thing to do was answer the question. It looked like Loríen had in fact managed to sever the bundle of electrical cables that had been her target before collapsing on top of them.

"Yes. What does that do for us?"

Cid breathed a loud sigh of relief into his PHS. "Then relax, Vince. Take a load off. That puppy's down for the count."

If Vincent was right about the change in tone signaling the final minute, there were twenty seconds left. He chose to spend the time turning Loríen onto her back and checking her wounds. She had lost a lot of blood and her color was bad, but she wasn't dead yet. He found one hi-potion in his jacket – not enough to fix what was wrong with her, but it was something. He popped the top and tipped its contents down Loríen's slack throat.

The last ten blaring ticks of the timer were even louder than the rest. Vincent _really_ hoped Cid was right. He took Loríen's hand in his and breathed calmly, waiting.

Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. _One_ –

Nothing.

The computer sounded an alert and then fell silent, but there was no action from the rocket engines. Nothing at all. It was over.

Vincent looked down at Loríen, deciding what to do for her first. She was in seriously bad shape.

He thumbed the PHS. "Cid. Send in the disposal team."

"Roger that, pal. So you managed not to blow the goddamn planet to smithereens?"

Vincent was relieved enough to actually chuckle, once. "How long before you can get here? Loríen needs immediate medical attention."

"Shit, I knew that. I've been headin' yer way since that crazy broad called me up chokin' on her own lung. If I can get this baby to give me all she's got, I'll be buzzin' you in ten minutes."

Ten minutes might not be soon enough, but it would have to do. "Understood."

A weak sob from the other side of the room forced Vincent's attention away from the conversation and the woman before him. He turned to see Gaetano struggling to his knees, his face a crumpled mask of despair.

"How…" the Avadi complained. "How did she know what to do? She shouldn't even have been able to _move_."

Easing himself up from Loríen's side, Vincent watched the other man warily.

"I don't understand why she would do this to her own people. Her own children," Gaetano went on, genuinely mystified. "She might not have agreed with us, but I thought certainly…" He shook his head.

"She tried to tell you why. All of you," Vincent replied quietly. "But you wouldn't listen. You never cared who _she_ was. You only ever cared what she might do for you. You only saw her as a tool."

"_You,"_ Gaetano spat viciously, sinking back on his heels. His jaw was purpling badly and torn open where Vincent had struck him, his lip split and bleeding, his nose clearly broken. He reached up with a shaky hand and wiped at the blood on his chin; the other hand was pressed flat against the bleeding bullet wound in his side. "What do you know about it, about her? What do you know about anything but destruction? You… you had a place in the world, and you _threw it away_. You _chose_ to be an outcast, chose not to belong. You ungrateful little bastard."

"Back to my father?" Vincent frowned. "I did hurt him, yes. I was young and stupid and I was wrong, but it has nothing to do with you."

The beaten Avadi man laughed bitterly, then surprised Vincent by grabbing hold of his discarded sword. Actually, _Loríen's_ sword, the ivory-handled weapon from Kalm. But he did not climb to his feet, did not make a move to come at Vincent or attack in any other way. He shook his head one more time.

"You would think that," Gaetano sneered. "Just as self-absorbed as that bitch over there. I guess you deserve each other after all. May you both rot in hell. I'll be waiting for you there."

Quick as thought, before Vincent could stop him, he had reversed his grip on the sword, and he drove the point into his own gut. An eerie, disturbing smile hanging about his lips, he allowed himself to fall forward so that the blade could sink in all the way to the hilt.

He laughed once, breathlessly, then was still and never moved again.

Vincent sighed and knelt again at Loríen's side.

She was awake. At least, her eyes were open – but she didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. Vincent pressed his gloved hand to the gunshot wound in her abdomen and tapped her cheek with the back of one clawed finger, trying to draw her focus, but she only blinked and continued to stare at nothing.

"Loríen," he said loudly, looking for some reaction.

She swallowed hard and blinked again. "Vincent. You are…"

"I'll be fine," he filled in, relieved. "Thanks to you." It would be a while, he knew, before he would be able to fully wrap his mind around what she had done here today. For him, for the planet.

"Gaetano…?" Her lips were blue. It was painful to listen to her breathe.

"It's over," Vincent replied firmly, amazed to find her even this lucid. She was tougher than she looked, to still be alive in her condition, with all the blood she had lost. Or some powerful motivation had to be driving her to live. "Cid will be here any minute with help. You just have to hold on."

Her inexplicable response was a wordless grunt of disagreement.

"Don't pull that nonsense with me," he snapped. "You're going to make it."

Loríen shook her head and lifted her bloody hand and put it on his where he was compressing her wound. Although she was unable to exert enough force to actually remove his hand, her meaning was clear enough.

"_No,"_ he snarled, furious that she would suggest such a thing – and, if he was honest with himself about it, even more upset that she was probably right.

"Puh-please…" She tried, visibly tried, but couldn't get enough air to make the words. Instead, she lifted her hand to Vincent's cheek, the only exposed flesh on his body. Even under the circumstances, her touch was like raw electricity against his skin. Instantly, he heard her thoughts in his mind as though she was speaking them clearly:

_Vincent, let me die. I have earned the right._

He could feel his face hardening into a mask of cold denial. "I can't do that."

_Yes, you can. I was made to live once already, when I should have died. Not again, please. Please. _

"But you haven't been living."

A look of faint incomprehension flitted across her deathly pale face.

Vincent took heart from the lack of argument. "You've been dead, ever since that day," he explained carefully. "But you've been given a second chance. With everything behind you now, you can build yourself a new life. It's time, Loríen."

_No. I am not strong enough for that._

"I am," he decreed in his sternest tone. "Let me help you."

She shook her head weakly.

_My world is gone, Vincent. Now that this is over, there is nothing here for me._

"Nothing?" As soon as he had said it, he wished he hadn't. If he was going to make her decide to live, to fight, it had to be for herself. Not because she thought she owed him anything. That was no kind of future for either of them.

For a moment, her eyes actually focused, and she seemed to be looking not just _at_ him but _into_ him. Surprisingly, he found he didn't care what she saw there. What mattered was that she was looking. Some kind of comprehension dawned on her pain-pinched features, but she only shook her head again.

_I never wanted you to save me, Vincent. I am sorry._

It felt more like a goodbye than an apology. The shallowness of her breaths and her drastically worsening color were not good signs either. The chest wound was pumping more blood now than it had been, indication that perhaps something vital, nicked by the bullet, had just given way.

He growled his frustration. "Damn it, Loríen, just hold on!"

Where the hell were the backup troops? Surely one of them had a potion or a Cure or _something_. And where was Cid with his promised ten minutes?

Unable to compress the chest wound properly with his claw or to take his other hand away from the shot to her diaphragm, he snatched Loríen's hand from his face and pressed that to the wound. She did not fight him this time, but she was probably too weak for it now even if she had wanted to.

Vincent was kneeling like that, holding Loríen's life into her body with both hands and praying to every god he could think of for a miracle, when it came. Not in the form of Cid, or WRO medics, but Turks.

"Man, was _that_ a close one!" Reno observed calmly, swaggering onto the scene with Rude at his side. "You good guys sure like to play it dangerous."

Vincent stared at them both, wondering for a flicker of an instant if he had finally lost his mind and was hallucinating this. "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

Reno grinned back at him. "Orders. 'Make sure at least one Avadi specimen makes it out of there alive.' Guess you're calling this one, huh?" Beside him, his silent partner was already producing first aid supplies as if from nowhere.

Leaving aside the choice of the word "specimen," Vincent could not hide the fact that he was grateful for the obnoxious redhead's timely arrival.

The slender Turk took in Vincent's situation – hands on Loríen's body, blood everywhere, on both of them – and wiggled his eyebrows sleazily. "Kinky, man. But not really my thing. What do you say we patch her up and get her the hell out of here?"


	29. Chapter 29

_**Chapter Twenty-Nine**_

"**I'm** afraid we've done all we can."

In the hallway outside the operating room was really no place to be given such news, Vincent decided. The WRO's doctors could use a few lessons in bedside manner – and if _he_ thought so, then they really did have a problem.

"So that's it? You mean we just wait?" Yuffie sounded as incredulous as Vincent felt, and he was grateful to her for expressing herself with far more emotion than he would have.

The tired-looking doctor nodded. "Yes, I'm afraid so. We repaired the internal damage, but she lost far too much blood and we have no way to give her any kind of transfusion. Her blood type is flat-out incompatible – human blood would just be a shock to her system, doing more harm than good."

Vincent's expression was probably far more threatening than he meant it to be.

"We're giving her fluids," the doctor added defensively, "and we've decided to give plasma a try. Hopefully, she will replenish her own blood supply – if we can just keep her alive that long."

Vincent grunted. It wasn't the doctor's fault he didn't like what he was hearing. And the man did genuinely seem to be distressed by his inability to do anything more for his patient. Really, Vincent had nothing to complain about. Everyone had been doing their best, and he had known it might not be enough. He tried to make himself accept that.

"What you're saying," he replied quietly, "is that it's up to her now?"

"That's right," the doctor agreed, visibly relieved that the intense man with the claw on his hand was not going to tear his face off after all. "It's all a matter of her will to live."

Vincent grunted again. Her will to live…

_I never wanted you to save me._ Words he knew he would not forget.

"Thank you, Doctor," Reeve put in smoothly, clearly sensing that no gratitude would be forthcoming from Vincent.

"May I see her now?"

They all seemed surprised that Vincent had actually asked, but no one said anything about it. This wasn't really the time for teasing, anyway.

The doctor shrugged wearily. "She won't know you're there. But it can't hurt."

Nodding, the former Turk pushed his way through the small crowd in the hallway and left his friends there, waiting, while he had a moment alone with the woman who had saved them all.

He remembered what she had looked like, those first days after he had brought her from the Gongoga lab, so small and young and out of place in the clinical white bed. Sad, too. She didn't look like that now. She looked, finally, peaceful. This time as she slept, awkward in the nondescript hospital clothes but not jarringly so, she seemed like a woman healing from her wounds and not like a prisoner forced to suffer them.

Or maybe that was all his imagination.

Vincent took a seat beside the bed, eyes following the trail of I.V. lines from her badly scarred white arm to the many bags hanging above her. She was paler than usual, but nothing like the horrible ashy grey color she had taken on in the transformed missile silo. She would live if she wanted to.

He wanted her to want to.

But Vincent had come to understand certain things. On the _Shera_, talking with Yuffie, he had realized it wasn't his job to save everyone whether they wanted it or not. And he had also realized he was going to have to change the way he thought about other people, about women, if he was ever going to have anything like a healthy relationship with the ones in his life. As much as he had been blaming himself for failing to prevent other people's pain, he had to accept their right to their own choices. Had to accept his own limitations, if he wanted to be human. It was not his responsibility to constantly be killing himself to save the world, as if he always had to be paying his way. All he had to do was be a part of it. And be the best man he knew how to be.

Loríen had to fight this battle on her own. He had already done his part, and if she wanted to live at this point it was entirely up to her to save herself now. He would not – could not – force her to move on with a life she didn't want. And if she chose oblivion, it would not mean that Vincent had failed her.

It felt almost unbelievably strange to accept that, but it was a relief too. Like a weight had literally been removed from his tired shoulders. He had had not felt this free since – no. He could not remember _ever_ having felt this free.

He felt the peace of having realized that he didn't have to be perfect, he just had to try – which is all anyone can do.

Vincent looked down at Loríen's face, memorizing every strangely inhuman, beautiful line of it. If he never saw her again, at least he would be able to carry the memory of what she had been, and something of what that meant, forward into the unnumbered days of his future. At least there would be someone alive in the world who would know that she had been. He would remember.

As for Vincent, he was choosing life.

"Thank you," he said to her sleeping form. Not just for saving him, saving the world, but for appearing in his life. If he had not found her in that lab, he would now be no closer than he ever had been to letting go of his past, his pain. In some ways, he felt like _he_ was the one who had been awoken. Whatever their time together had been to her, for him it had been a revelation. And he would treasure every frustrating moment of it.

He leaned down, careful of all the needles and lines and bandages, and pressed his lips to her forehead. She did not move. Turning away, he placed her ivory-handled sword on the empty tray beside her bed, and went back out into the hall with the others.

Reeve stopped him when he kept walking. "Where are you going?"

Vincent did not turn. He was done looking back. "Home."

The girl from Wutai made some kind of rude wordless _Yuffie_ noise of complaint, but Reeve was the one who actually said something.

"What about Loríen? She will wonder where you are, when she wakes up. Should I tell her?"

_**If**__ she wakes up,_ Vincent corrected mentally. Out loud, he said to his friend, "Only if she asks."

None of his friends called him on that, for which he was grateful. He knew they meant well, but it was time for him to take charge of his own life. Walking with purpose and his head held high – no longer bowed by regret – Vincent went home.

* * *

When Loríen awoke, the first thing she noticed was that she was alone. Then it occurred to her that she was alive.

It hit her hard.

Loríen had been here before – literally and figuratively. This time was different, though. This time she knew where she was. She lay in the hospital bed at WRO Headquarters staring up at the white-tiled ceiling, considering everything that had happened and what was going to happen now. And what it all meant.

Alive. For better or worse, she was alive, and she was just going to have to figure out how to be all right with that. There would be no sweet oblivion, no being forgotten by these people. They were not going to let her give up and disappear. This was her life now, picked up and flung so many thousand years into the future that nothing was familiar anymore. Nothing but the people.

It was not long before someone came to check on her. She glanced at the door, and was surprised to find herself disappointed when it was only Yuffie standing there.

The girl stared at her with saucer-wide eyes. "Holy shit, you're awake!"

Loríen felt herself almost manage to smile at that. "I am to assume that is not what you were expecting?"

Yuffie snorted, but worked her way to Loríen's bedside and flopped into the uncomfortable-looking chair there. "Um, _duh._ D'you have any idea how long you've been out?" She went ahead and answered her own question without waiting for an invitation. "More than three weeks! Good thing you decided to pull through," she added matter-of-factly. "We weren't sure for a while. And, you know, I did warn you I'd totally kill you if you went and hurt Vincent again."

Some kind of filter in Loríen's brain must have been temporarily malfunctioning, because she heard herself saying aloud instead of just thinking, "How would you manage to kill me, if I was dead already?"

The petite girl laughed heartily at that, slapping her knee. "Wow. That was so unfunny it almost hurt, but it's proof you have a sense of humor and stuff! _Hunh._ You learn something new every day."

Loríen felt something inside her relax as she watched the girl mock her, and it felt nice. Then she noticed the sword, waiting patiently for her on the bed tray, and she grew thoughtful again. So, he _had_ been here. Which meant that he was alive. Alive… and somewhere else.

A thought struck Loríen, and she could find no reason not to state it. "You still love him. Vincent."

Yuffie slouched back again and folded her arms across her chest smugly. "Of course I do. I said so already and I'm not the one with the denial problem. What we're trying to get across here is that you have feelings for him too."

It was the truth. May the god help her. Admitting it, hearing Yuffie say it, did not fill her with the anxious panic she had thought it would. It was complicated, yes, but she could not deny that whatever this new world and the future held for her, Vincent was a part of that.

And, strangely, so was Yuffie. A wave of fond nostalgia washed over Loríen as she observed the casually stubborn set of the other girl's jaw. She had heard almost this same lecture before, once upon a time. It had gone, then, just about the way she assumed this one would eventually. The Yuffies of the world were a force not to be dismissed, in any era. Loríen sighed.

"Yeah, don't pull that crap on me," Yuffie said to her lack of response, sniffing. "I've got like a PhD in reading lame-ass emotive silence, thanks to my time with Vin-Vin."

A ghost of a smile pulled at Loríen's lips. "I was thinking how very much you remind me of someone I once knew."

That made the girl grin saucily. "Someone awesome?"

The filter was still off. "Yes."

Yuffie jumped up from her seat, pumping her small fist in the air triumphantly. "Hell yeah! You know you love me, baby. I totally won you with that kick-ass Halloween party, right?"

Remembering the disastrous event in question, Loríen shook her head ruefully.

"May I call you Yuffie?" she asked, knowing how odd it was for her that she was reaching out, trying to make a connection. But it was time. This was her life now.

Yuffie raised one eyebrow, an expression she appeared to have stolen badly right off of Vincent's face. "Well I sure hope you weren't planning on calling me anything else."

It took a moment, but then Loríen could no longer help herself – she snorted and said, "That remains to be seen. Is Cid still around? My understanding of certain elements of your language still needs improvement."

"Aren't you a barrel of laughs today?" Yuffie grinned. "There might be hope for you yet."

Yes. That was what Loríen was counting on.

Neither of them spoke for a moment, but the silence was only slightly awkward. Yuffie twitched in her seat, playing with the edge of Loríen's blanket. Somehow, when she had not been looking, Loríen had acquired a new friend. And even though Yuffie was the kind of person Loríen always found most frustrating, well. It was a fond frustration.

She watched the girl fidget. "Yuffie, what ought I to do, if you are right?"

"When aren't I right? Right about what, though?"

It was hard to say. Loríen said it anyway. She had, after all, faced far graver challenges in her life, and would certainly face worse in this future she was going to try her hand at. "If I _do_… have feelings, for Vincent," she clarified. "What should I do?"

Yuffie sputtered like a teapot. "What the hell kind of question is that? I thought you only came from the past, not planet Googleflex."

Fighting back a smile, simultaneously offended, Loríen said nothing to that.

The other girl did her best to return something like a stony glare, but it didn't last. "Yeah, you're just afraid, huh?"

"…yes."

Ignoring all the hospital trappings and the fact that Loríen was recovering from having nearly _died_, Yuffie leaned close and punched her smartly in the thigh. It actually hurt, too. "I thought I already told you not to mess with my gloomy wangst-bucket's tender heart."

Maybe she was just slow because she had been so close to death. But it was more likely because she had spent her whole life learning to ignore emotion, in others too but mostly in herself. Either way, she failed to see where Yuffie was going with this.

The girl tried to explain, in her own fashion. "He only left to give you some freaking space to figure out whether or not you can get your shit together. He's totally crazy about you, you know."

Loríen absorbed that, allowing this piece of the truth a place in her new reality. He was right to have left, she realized. As much as she had missed seeing his face when she woke up – which, also, was sort of the point – she needed to get herself straight before she made herself any kind of presence in someone else's life. He had offered to help, but she had to be ready first.

When Loríen had been silent for a long time, thinking about everything, Yuffie made a threatening fist. "I'm telling you to go for it, doofus."

The nostalgia was back, stronger than ever. Yuffie was so very much like Lyn.

Loríen smiled at the vivacious girl trying to actually _beat_ sense into her. "I am grateful for your advice, Yuffie. Thank you. When the time is right, I believe I will do as you suggest."

Yuffie sighed gustily, shaking her head. "Sorry, but that's crap. If you're going to bother being alive, you might as well live. I may not be as old as Vincent or as savvy as Reeve or as obnoxiously book-smart as Red or as experienced as Cid or Barret or – well, you get the idea. But if there's one thing I do know it's that there's always some shit going on that you can hide behind if what you want is to keep ducking real life. Always. There's always _something_, if it's a flaming rock hurtling toward the planet or freaks on motorbikes stealing all the children or some asshole trying to build himself a body out of dead people that he can fly into outer space with. Or if it's just being too scared or not thinking you're ready or not knowing what you really want or how to say it, or whatever.

"The trick is to give yourself permission to live anyway even though all that other stuff is happening because you know what? Maybe next time that flaming rock really _will_ crash and it'll all be over, and then what will you have been waiting for?"

Love pinched at Loríen's heart almost painfully. More than anything right now she wanted to reach out and hug the other woman. She opened her mouth to speak and found that her voice was husky on the edge of tears. "You really are just like her."

Looking very smugly pleased with herself, Yuffie sat back and folded her arms across her thin chest. "Like who, anyway?"

"My sister."

* * *

It was a learning experience, one for which Vincent was long overdue, going through his father's things. He had put it off when he was younger, after Grimoire had died, and he had continued to put it off even after reclaiming the family home. There had been too much anger in him, too much hate. And he had always found excuses that seemed reasonable because he wanted them to.

Doing this now gave him a sense of closure he had been denying himself for far too long. It allowed him to put aside all that childish rage and to be free of it at last. And, somehow, he felt closer to the man he had hardly known.

When he finished with this, he thought maybe his long-neglected piano would welcome a reunion. It was time for that, too.

A car pulled into the drive while he was folding his father's old clothes and packing them away. Curious, feeling relaxed and in a fairly good mood, he entertained himself by considering the possibilities as he finished his task while waiting for the doorbell to ring.

He took his time going down to the door even after his visitor rang. There would be plenty of time for being a bad-ass in his future. Today he could afford to be a man content to look for life's answers. It had been only four weeks. At some point, he knew, he would probably regain some of his natural pessimism and grim intensity. But for the moment, he was allowing himself to ride the lazy high of coming to grips with his failings and having helped to save the world a fourth time.

The door opened on a face he had not expected to see.

She smiled when she saw him, a smile completely unlike anything she had ever offered before. Genuine, calm, shy. It sparked something in her eyes, too, that he had not seen there before. He realized in a powerful rush of longing just how much he had always wanted to see her smile like that, and how he had missed her.

"Hello," she said uncertainly. Nothing more.

She was alive.

He watched her, taking her in, waiting for her to make whatever move she had come here to make. It wouldn't exactly be smooth to let her see just how happy he was that she had come here at all.

Loríen lowered her eyelashes, youthfully unsure of herself. It was charming. "You look well," she told him quietly. He had missed the sound of her voice, too.

"I am well," he answered. "You seem to have recovered, too."

Again that shy smile. "I am… on my way to it."

He nodded. What he wanted was to reach out and hold her, make sure she was real and solid and among the living. To assure her that he was here too. But he had made a decision, back at HQ; Loríen still had her own choice to make. He needed to let her do that.

She seemed to understand, because she did not wait for him to offer any more of the small pleasantries. Clearing her throat tentatively, she looked up at him from beneath the falling tendrils of her black hair and said, "Reeve has offered to find work for me, and a home. You said – I may not belong here, but that I could make a place for myself. A new life. You said you would help."

He tried not to smile. "I did."

Gaining some courage from that – it was refreshing to see her so natural and fumbling and actually speaking what was in her mind – Loríen went on. "It seemed you were telling me… that you would want to be a part of that new life."

Vincent nodded once. "That is what I meant, yes." A part of him, that had been too strongly influenced by Yuffie, wanted to kick some sense into her and force her to be less "emotionally retarded." _Just say it already!_ he thought, annoyed but also amused. She was here, and trying, and that was a start. The rest, they could figure out together.

This time when she smiled, she seemed to share some of his mockery of the situation and the way she was failing to come at her true purpose. Her voice was still soft, but there was no doubt at all in her now.

"I would like that."

Her words and the way she said them sent a comfortable warmth all through his body, down to his bones. It was a strange sensation, one he was definitely not used to. That naturally pessimistic side of him said he was being a giddy idiot. The rest of him did not exactly mind finally being something other than miserable, whether or not the feeling was going to last.

Loríen was waiting for him, for his verdict.

He breathed in, and let it out slowly. And smiled. "I'd like that too."

_Fin_

* * *

And so, dear reader, that is all. The end of our mad journey together. If you stayed with the story all the way through, you have my gratitude, and also my admiration for being brave enough to give this thing a try. I hope I have rewarded your faith by providing you with a good read that did not suddenly poof into a steaming Mary-Sue turd-pumpkin when the plot clock struck midnight.

It was actually my goal all along to dance the line, drawing you close to Sueville but never entering city limits. I wanted to prove that an OC can be all the things we think they can't – smart, pretty, mysterious, tragic, powerful, etc – and still be well-done and interesting and _not_ a Sue. Basically, if you liked this story but are generally one of those _ZOMGSUE!_ alarmists, then you have just been pwned by your own rules, and _I made you love it_. My intentions started out pretty damn belligerently set on that, as a matter of fact.

But something about the process of coming through this story to the other side has left me feeling, I don't know. Almost warm and fuzzy. Like I want to say, _"I love you guys." _To be perfectly honest, it was my tentative plan all along for Vincent to choose to let Loríen die and have the end deal with his acceptance of that; but when the time came, I was feeling too affectionate toward the two of them to put them through it, and thus they earned themselves a reprieve. Now my head is crammed full of silly mental images of all the stupidly mushy and awkward ways they try to achieve an actual relationship and a modicum of mental health as Loríen struggles to acclimate to modern life.

Anyway. If you enjoyed what I gave you and thought I was even a little successful at what I set out to do, please drop a review to let me know. It would be deeply appreciated. Also, one last shout out to my wonderful beta and friend, Pen Against Sword. Without her, this story would have been much, much lamer. She has my neverending gratitude. If you liked my story and thereby reaped the benefits of her dedicated assistance, perhaps you could express your appreciation by reading some of her stuff. Now.

Thanks again, and good night.


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